


Shadow's Waiting

by phouka



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-14 19:18:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phouka/pseuds/phouka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benson and Stabler are on the trail of a serial killer, but their case takes them into a world they couldn't believe exists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where the Shadow Lay

**Author's Note:**

> **_Disclaimer:_** Law and Order, its characters, settings and all other attributable minutiae belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. The same goes for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century Fox. No profit or misuse is intended by this story, only a deep respect for the characters and where a story might take them.
> 
>  **Author's Note:** The title for this story comes from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time _series. The story is set post S7 for Buffy, and prior to Stabler's departure in L &O:SVU. It seems when I write stories set in ongoing television series, I tend to latch onto an Ur version of the characters. Ur-Stabler and Ur-Benson have UST. Ur-Stabler has marital problems. Ur-Benson is single. I claim no responsibility for this, only that the characters who live in my head appear in this manner._
> 
>  
> 
> **Warning: the content of this story contains sexually graphic material. If this stuff bothers you – if you cannot watch a regular episode of Law and Order:SVU – then you should not read any further.**

_Sunday - 8:45 a.m._

 

The steps down to the basement were badly lit and smelly as usual. Irma hiked her basket up on her hip to hold it steady as she reached the fire door.

“So, I’m telling her, ma, that she better not even think of flaking on Friday night,” she said, looking back. Her mother followed her, grimly carrying another heavily loaded basket. “She does, I’m not coverin’ for her. I tell her, I got a date with Ricky. You want to get loaded and forget to come to work, you do it Tuesday night.”

Her mother shook her head as Irma held the door for her into the damp basement laundry.

“Baby, you think maybe you could start workin’ with people that don’t pull that kind of crap on you?”

She glanced back at her daughter for an answer, but Irma stared past her, eyes wide, mouth open.

“Look,” her mother said, “I’m not gonna get on you about Ricky again, okay? So don’t give me that silent treatment shit.”

Irma dropped her basket and started screaming, the shrill, mindless scream of someone who has just had every thought of coworkers, hot dates, or boys named Ricky boiled from her head.

 

_9:23 a.m._

“Benson, Special Victims Unit,” she announced, stepping through the melee of cops.

“Partner’s inside,” one of the uniforms waved her in, then scribbled something off his pad of paper.

Elliot stopped her at the doorway.

“You haven’t had breakfast, have you?” he asked.

“No, I came straight here,” she gave him a glance. “That bad?”

“We’re gonna need about three different body bags and a whole bunch of Ziplocs,” he answered.

“Fin said there was only one vic." She kept looking at him.

“Just the one," he replied, "but she’s kind of spread thin.”

She blinked, reached into her pockets and pulled some latex gloves on, the better not to leave any prints.

“Have you gotten any sleep?” he asked, changing the subject.

Olivia shrugged and stepped past him into the laundry.

“Look, word came down to the captain – IAB cleared you in that little drywall incident.”

“With you and John backing me up, I wasn’t too worried,” she replied, annoyed that her partner was going on a fishing expedition.

Then she got her first good look at the crime scene.

“What the hell did he use on her?” she gaped. “Power tools?”

 

 

“Cause of death,” the ME pointed to a deep cut all the way across the vic’s throat. “Evisceration occurred before death and couldn’t have been more than a minute or so, or she would have bled out that way.”

“Time of death?” Stabler asked, pen over his notebook.

“Six or so hours ago,” she replied.

Stabler and Benson stopped and looked at her.

“This is the scene of the death, right? He didn’t move her body,” Benson said.

The ME glanced significantly at the blood spatters and debris on the floor.

“That’s impossible,” Stabler said flatly. “Canvas has already come back with half a dozen residents who did their laundry starting at six o’clock this morning, and one who ran a load at three when he got home. No one could have missed this.”

She gave them a shrug. “I only report what I’ve got on my hands. Unless your perp used a deep freeze to cool the body down or rigor set in less than an hour after death, it happened here, and it happened at least five hours ago, closer to six.”

Stabler knelt beside the body. Female, white, late teens or early twenties. Those were the only normal facts about her. She was emaciated – her lips pulled in on her teeth and not an ounce of fat left under her skin. Her hands were pulled into tight claws, but there were no signs of defensive wounds on her. Not even the homeless people they occasionally saw were this badly off. If anyone had seen this girl, they would have called an ambulance.

“Any sign of sexual trauma?” he asked.

“Some bruising around the genitals. I’ll have to do a rape kit to see if I find any fluids. Trouble is, the trauma to her abdomen when he cut her open, it’s going to be pretty difficult to recover evidence immediately.”

“Do what you need to,” Benson told her, “and keep us posted.”

 

_10:38 a.m. - SVU Squad Room_

 

It may have been Sunday, but the entire squad was there, running everything CSI brought them to look at. A board had been started, with a picture of the as-yet-unidentified vic. 

“She couldn’t have been out having a regular life,” Benson said, shaking her head. “Looking like that, someone would have called 911 on her.”

“All jokes about fashion models aside,” Munch said, looking up from his desk, “she looks like a sub-Saharan famine moved into midtown and set itself up for business in her apartment.”

“Anything back from missing persons?” Stabler asked as Captain Cragen stepped into the room.

“No, but we’re expecting to hear back on prints any minute. I’ve got calls in to Dr. Huang, and I’m waiting to hear back if we’ve got anyone who can shed some light on those symbols.”

“So,” Benson began, “we’re looking for a girl who was kept captive for at least – what? – six months? It takes time to get someone this starved. And why this apartment building?”

“Close to the killer’s home?” Fin offered.

“I still don’t get this time discrepancy,” Stabler said, slapping a couple of file folders down on the table. “Even ignoring the time of death, there was no time for a perp to drag that girl in there, do what he did, spread everything all around, decorate the walls with those crazy symbols, and get out without anyone noticing him.”

“Well, he didn’t cart her in and pose her like a centerfold,” Cragen answered. 

A uniformed officer stepped in and handed something to Fin, the closest to the door.

“Okay, looks like we got something,” Fin said, flipping through the pages. “Two somethings.”

Cragen leaned over to see. “Two sets of prints matched up.” His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “We’ve got an escaped murder convict by the name of Faith Lehane –”

“A woman did this?” Benson asked.

“And we’ve got a British national here on a green card – guy by the name of Rupert Giles, last known address in Sunnydale, California.”

“Isn’t that the town that was in the news a couple of months ago?” Stabler looked up.

“Yeah,” Cragen answered. “Whole town disappears off the face of the earth, swallowed up by underground subsidence.”

“Riiiiiight,” Munch wagged a finger at him. “A five mile wide sinkhole opens up, swallowing some of the most undervalued real estate on the west coast, there are less than ten deaths reported, and the government is all ‘gee, guys, we’re sorry we didn’t know about that.’”

The rest of the squad looked at him.

“So, the government arranged for an enormous, undiscovered cavern to lose stability and crater out,” Benson said. “And they stand to gain for this…how?”

“Oh, there are layers and layers of things going on with the big boys,” Munch answered. “They might have had some, I don’t know, underground lab breeding super soldiers or something, had to destroy it to cover up some terrible mistake.”

There was a moment when the rest of the squad considered pursuing that line of thought and then collectively decided against it.

“Markings on the wall and under the body definitely point to some sort of ritualistic killing. Could be we’ve got a perp who thinks he’s some sort of Satanist,” Stabler said, returning to the topic at hand.

“They don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen,” Cragen answered, checking the crime scene photos, “and that includes the well-researched fakes.”

Fin glanced at them. “Nothing like ‘em in Santeria or Voodoun. Besides, looks like your guy’s white. Probably ain’t goin’ in for any of the Black black magic.”

Stabler’s phone went off, and he spent a few seconds “mmm-hmmm”ing at it.

“That was the ME,” he clicked his phone off. “She’s got some stuff for us.”

“Let’s go,” Benson answered.

 

 

Down in the coroner's lab, it was a great deal easier to look at the body. It was draped, cold, and clinical. Her eyes had been closed, and the huge gashes on her body looked less like vicious murder than some medical illustrator having a bad day.

“Someone had sex with your vic,” the ME said, handing Benson a clipboard with printouts on it. “Judging from her condition, and the bruise around her right ankle that might be from a shackle, I’d be hard put to say it was consensual.”

“Any reason? Other than the obvious?” Stabler asked.

“This girl,” she pointed at the corpse, “was practically ex-sanguinated. Now, most of the blood either went on the walls or down the drain, but enough was left in her veins for me to run most of the screens we usually do.”

“What’d you find?” Benson asked, flipping through the chart, trying to make sense.

“Blood glucose level was so low, she would have seizured and died within twenty minutes if those cuts hadn’t killed her first. Everything I could check for – calcium, potassium, sodium, other electrolytes, levels of HDL and LDL, everything – was so bottomed out, it would have been fatal by day’s end, if not sooner.”

“Okay, so she was starved,” Stabler said. “We know that.”

The ME shook her head. “Starvation works in very specific ways. First to go is regular blood glucose. Then your liver starts burning fats to fuel you, and you get keto-acidosis. After you run out of fat, your body starts in on muscle. Last is organs.”

“Okay…” Benson held the chart in one hand. “And?”

“No evidence of keto-acidosis. No evidence of muscle death, which creates a by-product that would have caused kidney failure. No evidence of any organ damage of any kind. Well, except for what was caused when they were hauled out of her abdominal cavity. That’s the other thing.”

“What?” Stabler asked, starting to sound a little overwhelmed with all the strange evidence.

The ME took a deep breath. “I think your vic made the eviscerating cut herself.”

“What?” Benson asked in a very quiet, shocked voice.

“Here,” she said, taking Stabler by the shoulder. “I’m the perp, and I’ve got a knife in my hand. The weapon, by the way, was a six inch long blade, double edged. Not a kitchen knife. I want to stab and cut to open up your belly, I’m going to start at the bottom and go up. Point of penetration depends on how tall the attacker is, and with most, you can judge if they’re left or right-handed by the angle of the entry and the cut.”

She mimed it to show them. Olivia was looking markedly uncomfortable. She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried to watch without seeming distracted.

“The wound on our vic, however, was made just below the sternum and went straight down the midline. The entry shows the blade entering at a downward angle. If it had been the perp, even if the vic were lying on her back, the entry angle would have pointed up.”

For a moment, neither Stabler nor Benson could find words to speak.

“So, we’ve got a girl starved until she’s on death’s doorstep, showing up in the laundry of an apartment building six hours before she’s found even though residents are traipsing through every half hour, and she commits…seppuku?” Stabler demanded. “Are you telling me we don’t even have a perp?”

“Oh, you’ve got one, all right,” the ME answered. “The coup de grace, if you will, was administered when the vic was on her knees. From behind with a left to right sweep. He nearly cut her head off. After she was dead, he arranged the body, spread her intestines and other organs around like it was a grand guignol picnic, and then scrawled those symbols on the walls and floor.”

“Any evidence from the perp?” Stabler asked.

“Nothing under the nails. DNA on bodily fluids will give us something. No hairs or fibers that I’ve found. The killer did leave a specific mark on the vic’s body – like the other symbols, but not identical.”

At that, Benson’s head snapped up, and she turned white.

“Help me turn her over,” the ME told Stabler.

He pulled on a pair of gloves, and gingerly, they turned the body that was now rigid as a board, until her bare back was completely visible.

“Is that a tattoo?” Stabler asked, tracing over the character without touching it.

“No,” the ME answered. “I don’t know what the hell it is. I can’t even figure out if it was applied pre or post-mortem.”

“We need a picture of it. Olivia, can you-“

He looked up, but Benson was no longer in the room.

“Uh, get a picture, if you would, doc, and send us whatever other results you find. I’m going to go check on my partner.”

 

He found her sitting on the steps of a side entrance, the one the smokers usually took, though between the day, the hour, and the humidity, it was empty. The gloves lay in a crumple on the cement beside her. She pressed her forehead to her wrists.

He sat down beside her without saying anything.

When she finally looked up, not at him, she said, “I’ve seen that mark before, Elliot.”

“Where?” he glanced over at her. “A cold case?”

She shook her head. “No. It sounds crazy. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been seeing that exact symbol. I dreamed it last night and the night before last.”

He didn’t say anything.

“It’s just…” she bit her lower lip in frustration. “They’re so vivid, but there’s just flashes. I’d swear I was standing right there. Something about black stone, a wall, a dagger, and that mark…I can’t make sense of it. I’ve woken up about half a second from screaming five times in the last two nights, and I haven’t been able to get back to sleep again for hours.”

“You’re under a lot of stress,” Stabler said after a long moment of silence. “The investigation last week – that perp nearly had John, and I don’t doubt if he’d gotten a chance, we’d be short a detective. No one’s faulting you for that.”

“I put the man through a wall,” she answered without looking at him. “He had two fractured vertebra and three crushed ribs from the studs he broke.”

“Adrenaline,” Stabler shrugged. “You saw someone about to take out a cop, a friend, and you reacted. All I’m saying is maybe you should take a day or two off.”

She shook her head. “No. This guy’s going to kill again. Soon. I’ve got to help put the collar on him.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “So…we go back in. We do what we do and get this sorted out as best we can.”

She nodded and climbed to her feet, but he had the door open for her before she reached it.

 

_3:52 p.m._

Canvassing, never Benson’s favorite task, was all the less fun thanks to lascivious reactions of the male witness they asked about Lehane, and the female witnesses they asked about Giles. They’d gone back over the apartment building and nearby neighborhood with pictures of both the convict and the alien.

“You seen this guy?” Stabler asked, holding out a picture from INS of Rupert Giles, looking harmless, intelligent, and tweedy.

“Yeah,” the barista replied, glancing back over her shoulder, stopping and turning round to give her full attention. “British guy, right? He came in just as I was coming on shift, with a group of people.”

“What were they doing?” Benson asked.

“Well, he and this other guy – cutie with an eye patch – came up and ordered coffees all around. There were, lemme think, three girls. A blonde, a redhead, and a brunette. The redhead was crying her eyes out. The blonde was patting her on the shoulder, kind of looking out for her.”

“The brunette?” Stabler looked up from his notepad.

“Looked like she wanted to break something. Don’t normally get her kind in here. She seemed more of a biker bar kind of chick.”

“Is this her?” Benson pulled out the picture of Lehane.

“Yeah, that’s her,” the barista nodded as she mixed two mochas. She had a hairnet over her purple and pink locks, where her scalp wasn’t shaved.

“What about the two men,” Stabler prompted her.

“The younger guy was upset too,” she tilted her head. “Said something about how he was sorry he’d had sausage for breakfast. That other guy, though? That accent? Mmmmm, he could talk all day, and I wouldn’t care what he was saying.”

“What was he saying?” Benson asked.

“Um…” she paused, tapping her spoon on the side of the cup. “Something about a guy they had to find. He’d be back, the British guy said. Didn’t sound happy, either.” She popped tops on the two mochas and put them on the counter. “On the house, guys. We like cops coming by.”

 

They stepped out of the coffee house, sipping drinks too hot for an August day. Benson looked like she could use the caffeine.

“What kind of perp travels in a pack like that?” she wondered.

“Manson, and he had similar tastes for havoc.”

“Pretty unusual, though.”

“Yeah.”

 

_7:49 p.m. - Squad Room_

 

“You are not going to believe the stuff we pulled up on this guy and the town he’s from,” Munch said as they walked back in.

“Enlighten us,” Stabler said as he stripped out of his jacket. The afternoon outside was like warmed over dog breath, and he had no illusions about how he looked or smelled

“Guy comes over from the mother country eight years ago,” Munch began, clearly warming to his topic. “In the first two years he’s here, he’s involved in two homicides. First one is Jenny Calendar, a teacher at the school he worked at. She was found dead in his apartment, laid out on his bed with roses, neck broken.”

Stabler and Benson swapped a look.

“Next death is a Jamaican girl by the name of Kendra Johnson. Had her throat cut in the library he was in charge of.”

“Why the hell is this guy not locked up somewhere?” Benson asked.

“All the evidence pointed to other parties,” Fin answered for his partner, knowing that Munch hated when facts got in the way of a good conspiracy. “Calendar was killed by some psycho, name of Angelus. Guy went underground, showed up in LA once, then disappeared. Bunch of other deaths have been pinned to him.”

“And the Jamaican girl?” Stabler asked.

“Got nothin’ on her,” Fin responded. “Sunnydale PO was mostly online when the town went down, so their databases on records, priors, and such were intact. There are some big blank spots, though. If I were a suspicious man, I’d say there was some big time corruption out there.”

“You know what the number one cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 35 out there was?” Munch asked, pointing a file folder at them.

“Car accidents?” Benson guessed. “Suicide?”

“Neck injuries with concomitant ex-sanguinations.”

“What?” Stabler was looking more and more incredulous. “How many are we talking?”

“Death rate was something like ten in every thousand,” Munch answered. “Imagine, one percent of your high school and college population showing up with their throats cut over the course of eight or nine years.”

“And that’s not including death by undetermined causes and a missing persons database that must have made that town seem like going fishing on a Superbowl Sunday,” Fin added.

“And it gets wiped off the face of the earth?” Benson asked.

Munch raised a cynical eyebrow at her.

“Makes Sodom and Gomorrah sound like Chuck E. Cheese,” Stabler said.

 

The board was now beginning to fill out. In the center was the picture of their Jane Doe, now known to be 20 years old, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, with a tongue piercing. Rupert Giles and Faith Lehane were also posted with links drawn off to Sunnydale, mentions of previous deaths that could be connected to either, and places for the three unidentified persons hanging out with them – the blonde, the redhead, and the guy with an eye patch. A few pictures of the crime scene were posted, but they were too grisly even for seasoned SVU detectives to want to see out of the corner of their eyes. Most of the other pictures were reproductions of the symbols found at the scene of the crime, and the one – which they still couldn’t figure out how it was applied – on the back of Jane Doe.

Dr. Huang stood a few feet back, studying the board.

“These women with him must be completely under his control,” he said, studying the pictures and notes he’d been given. “The crime, the mutilation, speak of an utter contempt for women and an incredible amount of control. He gets power from these deaths. He left his fingerprints all over the crime scene, but no other physical evidence. He’s taunting you and showing his prowess as a killer.”

“Lehane?” Cragen asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he put her up to her first killing. She got a taste for it. They may be sexually involved, but she’s completely under his thumb in every way.”

“Why here?” Benson asked. “Why now?”

Huang made a thoughtful frown. “Sunnydale provided him with the perfect hunting ground. From the apparent corruption or incompetence of the police department there and a very transient population with all the college students and the port, he could probably hunt with impunity. The town is destroyed, and it takes him a while to find a new place that he’s comfortable with. He probably feels that New York, as large as it is, provides him with the anonymity he needs.”

“The girls?” Benson asked.

“He was a school librarian. He had ample opportunity to pick out students he could prey on in one manner or another. He is meticulous, and he will kill again.”

Stabler, Benson, and the rest of the squad considered the board. They had a serial killer on their turf.

“I’ll get ahold of the FBI tomorrow morning,” Huang offered. 

“I’d appreciate it,” Cragen nodded. “Benson, Stabler, I want Jane Doe’s dentals over to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children first thing in the morning. We need to find out who she was.”

“You got it,” Stabler nodded.

They broke for the night.

 

_8:47 p.m._

With Munch, Finn, the captain, and the rest of the support staff gone, the squad room was darker and quieter than Olivia had ever seen it. She stood by her desk, aware that she should be sorting her stacks of papers to go through in the morning, but more absorbed in watching rain hit the windows on the far wall. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a full night’s sleep. The images from those dreams flickered through her mind, followed and matched by glimpses of the crime scene from that morning. She looked from the window down to the pile of photos on the corner of her desk. That symbol should have been something easily identifiable, recognizable – Hebrew, maybe Chinese, but it wasn’t. She knew it from the night before – just before the vic had died. There it was, inscribed on the victim’s back, between her shoulder blades.

“Liv.”

She put her thumb next to the symbol and rubbed the surface of the photo, almost as if she could rub the mark off that girl. She blinked and rubbed her eyes with her other hand. The image of the photo, on the desk, the floor beneath the desk, seemed flat and garish. The edges of her vision crowded with grey.

“Liv?”

She couldn’t remember the last time she was this tired. She put her weight on her hands, as her feet didn’t seem to want to bear it anymore. There was some noise, of something being dragged over the linoleum, and then hands on her arms, moving her. Elliot. He was saying something. She could hear the words, but they bounced around, and she couldn’t hold onto them long enough to make sense.

Then she was sitting, and his hand was on her back, pushing her shoulders and head down. She could hear herself breathing hard. Elliot walked away, stopped for a moment, and came straight back. She felt a cold, wet cloth on the back of her neck. He took her hand, and there was another cloth on her wrist. After a moment, he put it on her other wrist.

The world came back into normal focus, and the sounds of a warm, rainy evening returned to their normal volume.

“What happened?” she asked, looking up at him.

“You didn’t answer when I called your name,” he said, pulling a chair over to hers. “I checked, and you looked like you were about to keel over.”

She nodded. 

“When was the last time you ate?”

There’d been no dinner, she thought. What had lunch been? Usually it was a burger or other fast food grabbed on the go. She couldn’t remember. Breakfast was…

“Yeah, I thought so,” Elliot answered for her.

“Listen, I’m going to run you home. We’ll grab some food on the way, and you are going to eat it.”

It was a measure of how bad she felt that she didn't argue with him, just nodded her head again.

 

 

It was a drive-through, a burger place, one of the few still open that late. She really hadn’t any desire to eat the heart attack in a wrapper he handed her, but discovered to her chagrin that five blocks later, the only thing left was some grease spots on the paper. The chocolate shake he’d given her lasted only a moment longer. 

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah.” The food sat in her stomach and radiated warmth into her head and limbs. The fog that had sat on her shoulders for so long that day retreated.

“I’m gonna walk you up,” he stated, giving her a sidelong glance.

Still, though she felt better, she didn’t bother to argue. Something about the crime scene that day, the bits that were all too familiar because she’d already dreamt them, made her tolerate Elliot’s company.

“Do you ever feel like…” she paused, trying to put her thoughts in order. “Like one day, it’ll be the last crime scene? You’re just going to walk out and leave it all behind?”

There was a long moment of silence. Elliot pressed his lips together. She looked back out the window when she realized he wouldn’t answer.

“Yeah,” he finally said in a quiet voice, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’d figure that this is bad, you know, but bad as it is, it’s the worst. It won’t get any worse. At least not for a while. Then I’d go home and hold Kathy, breathe her scent, and the world would be okay. Not so much anymore.”

That kept her quiet until they reached her apartment.

“I’ll walk you up.”

Again, she didn’t argue, thankful only for his constancy when it felt like the rest of her world had come unmoored. Inside her apartment, she turned on only one light, wishing the darkness would promise sleep as it hadn’t in weeks. Elliot followed her in, making sure that the shadows weren’t populated by whatever nightmares he carried with him after seeing a girl’s organs spread across the better part of a three hundred square foot room.

She watched him pace her living room, aware for the first time that day that he was just as disturbed as she was. He might not have those dreams camped out in his head, but his world was still askew from the divorce. Kathy, the kids, they had been his daily anodyne to this world, waiting for him when he walked out of the shadows. Now he saw his children once a week, if a case didn’t get in the way, and Kathy was no longer there at all. 

“We’ll find him,” she assured her partner.

He nodded curtly, lost in his own thoughts. A muscle flickered back and forth in his jaw.

“Elliot,” she said his name, stepping over to where he’d paused in his unspoken thoughts.

They didn’t usually touch, maybe once or twice on the shoulder to get one another’s attention or to check on them. It was a professional boundary, one all the members of the SVU squad respected. Still, it seemed the most normal thing in the world to put a hand on his ribs, for him to open his arm and let her step close, lean her head on his shoulder. His hand rested on her shoulder blade, and he bowed his head over hers for a moment, and then, as a silent benediction, his lips touched her forehead. 

He took her other hand in his and held it, his thumb slowly brushing across her palm. She looked up at him, and for one long drawn out moment, could see two paths branching before her. Down one, Elliot pulled away and left, and they never shared another moment like this again. The other…

They gazed at one another, and she tilted her face back just as he leaned down to her. Their lips touched, barely, and she felt his hand move from shoulder to the back of her head and caress her hair. She was barely breathing, eyes closed, and the same moment she leaned further into the kiss, he pulled her to him.

It happened so quickly, she was never able to put things in order in her mind later. They were kissing, deeply, her hand curling around the side of his head, pulling his face down to hers. His mouth was on her neck. She was pushing his coat off, pulling her blouse over her shoulders and head. His hands slid over her bare skin, holding her against him, reassuring her. They were in her bedroom, having left a trail of blouse, shirt and tie, shoes, bra, and belt. She knew him, knew from his stance and the way he held his shoulders what he was thinking, knew every bend and inflection of his voice, knew the intent gaze he used when he got into someone's head and read things from their perspective. She knew that when he held her and he kissed her breasts, cupped them, nuzzled and suckled them, that he had thought of doing such a thing a thousand times before.

There was no question, no hesitation, as she unzipped his pants and pushed them down, that she had thought a thousand times more of holding him against her, of their lips moving against one another’s, of their skin from collar to belly pressed together. There were no words as she fumbled the nightstand drawer opened and found her box of condoms, only his steady gaze as he took one from her hand and lead her to bed.

There, as he brought her down beside him, was the only time he spoke.

“Liv,” he said in her ear, “you say no anytime, I stop. Okay?”

“Okay.”

But she had no intention of saying anything that might make him pause. He was kissing the skin of her neck just below her ear and returned to her mouth when she’d taken him in hand and rolled the condom down the length of his cock. His breathing stopped for a moment and he closed his eyes when her hands moved over it, testing and teasing. Then he continued kissing her, growing rougher and more demanding. They lay on their sides, facing one another, pulling closer and closer together. It didn’t occur to her until later that at no point did she work at this, try a trick of amorous arts to impress him or prove to him how good she’d be. It was only what she wanted, what he wanted, what the ache in her body demanded as she pressed her hips against him, felt his hand slip over her hip and bring her leg up over his. 

While his mouth was on hers, his tongue moving across hers, he pulled her closer and pushed her back against the bed so that he moved a little over her. His arm wrapped around her, holding her, and he mounted her, slipping inside so easily that she could only shudder against him. He rolled back, bringing her with him, and she moved with him, timing her hips to his slow thrusts, ducking her head against the corner of his shoulder and neck.

His top arm held her, she held on to his shoulder, their bottom arms stretched over their heads, fingers entwined. She curled into him, pressing closer and closer, panting with the effort. So close. So deep. He was breathing hard, short, barely audible groans with each stroke. The ache that filled her intensified, became as dense and hot as the core of a star. She was moving with him without knowing it, feeling only the rocking, consuming need. She fought with him, against him, needing him closer, finding no relief as it built within her. 

Their breath mingled. His eyes were open, and in the darkness of her bedroom, his gaze found hers and pinned her to him. The pressure of him, inside her, holding her to him, washing over her, again and again, and never retreating but always growing, became a torture she couldn’t escape. The word “no” was on her lips, if only to find surcease.

And then, even that end slipped past her, and the only thing left was him, the vibration of his low voice that shivered her, the shiver that took her and exploded, the sound of her own voice gasping and crying out as she lost control, the length of him inside her as she convulsed, held tightly in his arms. The release as she was finally there, so close to him, he was part of her, and her muscles gave out in exhaustion and satiation.

They breathed together for a long moment, still so intimate that no words were said. In time, as his hand moved over her hair, her face, her shoulder, hip, and breast, the connection faded. He shifted his weight and was no longer inside of her.

“I’ll be right back,” he kissed her forehead and climbed out of bed to head to the bathroom. 

She watched him as he ran water in the sink and cleaned up, aware that at some point she would be consumed with worry over the meaning of this, the consequences. But at that moment, she could only study the line of his shoulders, his back, his legs with a little wonder. She was falling asleep as he returned. He slid into bed beside her and gathered her to him, and for the first night in easy memory, she was asleep without effort.

 

 

He was waiting for her when she dreamt, waiting in the shadows. She pressed her hand against cold, damp black stone, a wall of it.

“Your partner is in terrible danger,” a man with a British accent yelled.

She held a slender dagger in her hand, looked up, and saw a teenage girl sitting on the stone floor in front of her, curled in a ball, weeping with exhaustion. The girl looked up. She had been pretty before – a hazel eyed imp with freckles, a pug nose, and sun streaked blonde hair. But that was before he had found her. Now, her eyes were dead stars in the orbits of her skull, her skin so thin Olivia could clearly see the lines of veins underneath.

The dagger she’d been holding was in the girl’s hands.

“All my fault,” the girl sobbed. “All my fault.”

He took a step out of the shadows. “It is, sweetheart. It’s all your fault.” His voice was soft, almost hypnotic with its hatred, its lust. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Don’t,” Olivia stepped forward with her hand out, trying to reach the girl, restrain her, but she couldn’t move.

He walked around her with the pace of a disinterested doctor and the expression of a man about to climax from the excitement. He touched the girl’s hair as she reversed the dagger and pointed it towards herself.

“NO!” Olivia screamed as the girl stabbed herself.

He looked up as the girl crumpled forward and saw Olivia, and his smile widened. Horrified, Olivia looked down and saw, as the blood began to pour out of the girl’s belly, another stain spreading over her back, taking the form of the symbol she’d seen over and over again.

He took the girl by her hair and pulled her up. She was dying; her eyes had begun to glaze over. He reached down and pulled the knife out, twisting it back and forth, bathing his hand in the girl’s blood. The girl was too weak to fight, and he pulled her head back until her throat was completely exposed. He grinned at Olivia as he cut the girl’s throat, and the blood spattered her from six feet away.

The light changed, and she was standing, barefoot, naked, in an alley with wet, buckled asphalt under her feet. From the sky, it wasn’t morning yet. Someone, a woman, was crying in desperate frustration.

“She’s dead,” the voice sobbed. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t help her.”

“There’s another,” said another woman’s voice.

“Can you find her?” It was the man with a British accent.

“I don’t know. I think he’s seen her.”

“We don’t find her,” another man’s voice said, “she’ll be dead before the week is out.”

“For that matter,” the British man answered, “so will we all.”

 

 

“Liv! LIV! WAKE UP!”

Hands were shaking her awake, and she twisted against them until she heard a sharp cry of pain, and she was free. She spilled off the bed and scrambled to get her back to the wall. The lamp on her nightstand came on, blinding her. Stabler slid off the bed and sat on the floor with her, far enough away not to frighten her, and held his wrist with the other hand.

She realized she was shaking, hyperventilating.

“Liv,” he leaned forward and pitched his voice to a low, soft tone to calm her, “you’re home. You’re safe.”

“Elliot,” she answered, touching her face with a shaking hand. Was there blood on her face?

“You’re okay,” he continued. “Look at me, Liv. You’re okay.”

Her mouth trembled as she fought for control. “She’s dead. He killed her, and she’s dead, and I couldn’t stop it.”

“Shhhh,” he soothed her, reaching out. There was a set of livid bruises on his left wrist exactly the size and shape of the fingers of her right hand. “Shhhhh. It’s all right, Liv.”

“He saw me. He killed her, and he saw me, and I couldn’t stop any of it,” she tried to explain as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“It’s all right,” he said again, keeping his voice soft and low. He touched her face, and she couldn’t shrink back from him. He brushed her hair back and cupped her face. “Shhhhhhh. You’re all right.”

He soothed her, stroked her until she allowed him to pull her gently into his arms and shelter her there. He rocked her while she wept and took her to bed again, and when she turned to him, he made love to her, and she let his touch convince her that there was no one standing in the shadows, watching her.


	2. Chapter 2

_Monday - 7:16 a.m._

He’d left early in the morning, waking her, kissing her, and explaining that he had to get back to his place for a shower and a change of clothes before work, that he’d see her there. Knowing that she’d have a little time before she had to be up, Olivia lingered in bed. She’d need to wash the sheets, empty the trash, clear away the evidence that Elliot had spent the night. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just an awareness that certain things needed to be done. She could smell him on the pillow.

What had they done?

SVU wasn’t like other departments. The detectives knew they weren’t to get personal. It interfered with the work, skewed reactions on the job, and provided perps with an extra lever against them. Could Elliot even treat her as a partner and not a lover? He’d been maniacally protective of Kathy, and that’s not what Olivia needed to deal with on the job.

“Burn that bridge when we get to it,” she muttered to herself, pulling a clean top on and looking around for her boots.

The bruises on Elliot’s wrist had swollen until he’d gotten out of bed for an ice pack. He hadn’t said a word, other than to ask if she had an Ace bandage anywhere. The shower drowned out any thoughts about the complications of a workplace romance in a workplace that rarely dealt with love, only the hateful distortions of it.

For no reason she could think of, on her way out the door, she stopped at the pad of paper she kept by the phone for messages and picked up the pencil.

‘Vic: female, mid-late teen, white, hzl eyes, blonde, aprox. 5’6”, 110 lbs’

Underneath that line, she drew the symbol she’d seen, automatically drawing it right-side up, though she’d seen it upside down. It was slightly different than yesterday’s, more complex, looking a little like a compass rose, but mostly not. Just thinking about it made her cringe. Underneath, she wrote another line.

‘Perp: male, late 20s/early 30s, white, eyes?, hair brown/black, approx 5’11”, 190 lbs.’

She folded up the paper and tucked it into her pocket on the way out the door.

 

8:13 a.m.  
Squad Room

“How we doing?” Benson asked as she shoved her purse into her locker.

“No hits on dentals or fingerprints for Jane Doe,” Fin answered, looking up. “No missing persons files from New York or California match her.”

“Waiting to hear back on the messages left in California,” Stabler said, leafing through a fresh report from the ME. “Looks like our vic was raped post mortem, then her abdominal organs were pulled out and spread around the room.”

“How can they-“ and she stopped herself. However the ME had figured that one out, she didn’t want to know.

“I’ve got requests into Scotland Yard for more background on Mr. Tea and Crumpets,” Munch added, stepping into a silence that was more appalled than awkward. “So far, we’ve got an Oxford grad with no criminal record in the old country. He was a curator at the British Museum before moving here to take a job as a high school librarian.”

They considered that for a moment.

“I don’t know about you,” Munch said, snapping his file shut, “but I’m having a hard time getting into this guy’s head. You want a happy hunting ground, why go to all the trouble of emigrating to the US? You’re a serial killer with a taste for the gruesome, and you keep company with a bunch of Generation Angst wannabes who buy mochas and comfort each other after a murder? Manson aside, has there ever been a serial killer who worked with more than one partner?”

“What, you think he’s some innocent lamb, wandered onto a murder scene and left his prints all over it?” Stabler asked.

“I’m saying it smells like a setup,” Munch replied. “Which I know you’re going to disregard completely, but that’s okay. Truth will out.”

“This is like that time you decided the Amish offed JFK, isn’t it?” Fin asked.

“Hey,” Munch protested, “that’s a completely legitimate theory. Besides, who’d ever suspect them?”

“Benson, Stabler,” Cragen yelled from his office. “Mount up. We’ve got a report of a possible homicide, female victim, five blocks from yesterday’s site. Witness said there were three people standing around a body.”

 

When Benson and Stabler arrived, there were already two patrol cars on the scene and a crowd of people gathering behind the police tape.

“Tell me we got someone,” Stabler said, holding the tape up for Benson to duck under.

The sergeant on scene looked over from one of his patrol officers, leaning on the building that made one side of the alleyway.

“I’ve got two men puking their guts up,” he told them, “and I’m probably going to have to order psych evals for them, myself, and my other boys. You see this shit in Silence of the Lambs, not real life.”

He led them through the alley.

“Witness calls it in, saw it from the third floor,” he pointed above him.

They both glanced up, and for one vertiginous second, Olivia had to clench her jaw shut. It was the alley from her dream. The asphalt under her shoes was wet, buckled from heavy trucks passing over too many times. The lintels over the windows were the same, the color of bricks identical.

“We get here,” the sergeant continued, “and there’s three folks standing out back, talking over the corpse.”

“Who?” Stabler asked.

“A guy and two girls. Guy sees us, yells at them, and they take off like rabbits.”

They came to the end of the alley and the worn lot behind, complete with weeds, a rusted dumpster, and in the inside corner where two wings of the building met, a body sprawled out, surrounded by pink ropes of intestines and other organs. The walls above the body were smeared with blood, both by hand and from drips that had crawled down the length of the wall. A fence surrounded the lot, ten feet tall. The only way out was the way in. There was nowhere for the girls to go.

“Where are they?” Benson asked. 

The sergeant sighed and made a grimace. “The guy we got. Didn’t raise a hand until we told him to. Politest collar I’ve ever seen. He’s waiting in the squad car for you now. The girls…”

“What about the girls?” Stabler asked.

“Weirdest goddamn thing I’ve seen in eighteen years on the force,” the sergeant said. “They took off, like I said. Where are they going to go? Over the fence. In one jump. Both of them. It was like watching a friggin’ Olympics gymnastic floor show.”

“Did you get them?”

He shook his head. “I radioed ahead, and my boys ran for it from the other side. One of ‘em says he say them shinnying up a drainpipe and making for the roof. I dunno. All I know is, no one’s seen ‘em since.”

Neither being one to criticize a sergeant that looked like he’d been on the beat since Jehovah made cops, they traded a glance.

“Corpse or perp?” Stabler asked.

“Perp’s not going anywhere,” she answered. “Let’s take a look.”

As they walked over, she fingered the folded note in her pocket. The photographer saw them coming and stepped back, giving them room. Outdoor lights gave harsh, jagged illumination.

It was the girl from her dream, and it wasn’t.

In her dream, the girl had been worn, despairing. This girl, as far as she could tell, had the same bone structure, skin color, and height, but that was almost all she could see. Like the first vic, this one resembled nothing so much as a famine victim. She was gaunt, pulled in, dull eyes staring sightlessly from deep sockets. Olivia could see the pattern of veins under her skin.

Blonde hair and hazel eyes. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the vic might be a teenage girl. It was hard to tell, with the ribs standing out like tines of a rake. It had been a hard death. She gripped the note in her hand.

“Elliot,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he looked over at her and saw the piece of paper she held out to him.

He took it from her, unfolded it and read. Without a word, he pulled on a pair of gloves, stepped gingerly over to the corpse, and with gentle care, lifted the body by shoulder and hip to look at the girl’s back.

When he came back, he was white around the mouth.

Ducking his head to hers, he whispered, “Liv, what the hell is this? You saw this?”

She nodded. “Last night. It’s what you woke me up from.”

She didn’t bother trying to guess his thoughts. She knew how he processed information. She was with him all night. Time of death had been around six hours previously. They were partners, and he was a rational man. The past year, a perp had faked being psychic in order to watch the department track his crimes. Elliot had never been taken in. But things just weren’t adding up properly.

As she watched, he divided what was in front of him into two categories: things he had answers to and things he had no answers to. He looked at the note she’d given him and tucked it into his pocket.

“Let’s go see our perp.”

 

_10:36 a.m. - Squad Room_

He looked much as he had in the INS picture. He was, perhaps, a little more careworn, and his hairline had retreated a good inch. There were marks of worry and exhaustion plain on his face. Normally, letting a suspect stew in the observation room for a few minutes gave the detectives a window onto his character. Even when they knew they were being watched, most of them gave something away with their mannerisms; they were nervous, arrogantly sure, guilty, scared, or something. He sat, his hands still cuffed behind him, with a stoic patience, as solid as chunk of granite.

In the first minute, he’d glanced around the room, clearly recognizing the one-way mirror for what it was, noting the filing cabinets that crowded the opposite wall as the squad room was always short on storage space, and checking other mundane details. Then, he’d sighed and settled in for the wait. Behind the glass, all four detectives, their captain, and Dr. Huang watched.

“He’s not our guy,” Munch insisted.

“You think a guy that left fingerprints all over both crime scenes without calling 911 doesn’t have a thing to do with two dead girls?” Benson asked.

“Didn’t say that,” he shook his head. “But he didn’t kill them.”

“Right,” Stabler answered. “Jeffe?”

“You and Benson, start working him,” Cragen nodded.

 

Stabler closed the door behind him. “You know your rights?”

“I was introduced to that charming notion when I was arrested,” Giles replied.

“Rupert Giles, curator, librarian, and lately a resident of Sunnydale, California,” Benson recited, reading off the notations on his arrest chart.

“Was,” he corrected her. “The town, unfortunately, no longer exists.”

“Where you been in the meantime? Moved to New York?” she asked, leaning over. Stabler stood on the other side, adding an intimidating presence. It didn’t faze Giles.

“Shortly after the destruction of Sunnydale, I relocated to Cleveland, Ohio.” 

“Why’re you here?” she asked.

“More importantly,” Stabler leaned down to his level, “what the hell were you doing on not one, but TWO, killing grounds? Penchant for dead girls?”

Giles gave him a sidelong glance and settled himself a little further in. “Detectives, I will answer your questions to the best of my ability, though I can only predict that my answers will lead to my incarceration either in a mental facility or a prison. However, I’d like to ask the favor of removing my handcuffs. I’m no danger to either of you, and they’ve grown quite uncomfortable.”

Both detectives paused, and Benson let a smile escape. “Gotta love the British. No one's more polite.”

Stabler fished his keys out and unlocked the cuffs, pulling them off Giles’ wrists. Giles took a deep breath and rubbed his sore, red wrists, chafing them back to life.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “And, if it’s not too much trouble, may I have a cup of coffee?”

“Thought you British guys drank tea,” Benson raised an eyebrow at him.

“If there were an actual cup of properly brewed tea to be found anywhere on this misbegotten continent, I would claim it in a heartbeat. I’ve learned to manage with coffee,” he answered, looking at her.

For a moment, his eyes narrowed – not in anger, but in puzzlement and curiosity. Just as quickly, he averted his gaze, but not in time to escape notice by either detective.

“Okay,” Stabler announced, sitting on the corner of the table. “We’re going to play nice. You get your coffee, we get our answers. What the hell were you doing at two different murder scenes?”

Giles made a frown that spoke eloquently of knowing exactly what he was about to get himself into, and doing it anyway.

“First, Detective Stabler, you should be aware that there are more than two murder scenes. My associates and I have located three others, though none as recent as the two you’ve identified.”

Had the soundproofing been any better, none of them would have heard the scuffle of feet or snapping of orders from the other side of the wall in the shocked silence after Giles’ comment.

“By the first victim,” Giles continued, “I assume you mean the girl whose body was discovered yesterday in the laundry of an apartment building – several hours dead, eviscerated, emaciated, and…” he seemed to struggle for appropriate words, “…brutalized in a manner even few of your calling have ever seen.

“She was a student and colleague of mine who relocated with me and my other associates from Sunnydale to Cleveland. Her name was Kennedy O’Shaunessy, and she was from Boston, originally. Her family is considered to be ‘old money’, though she had been estranged from them for some time. She left Cleveland of her own free will two weeks ago, and Saturday night, one of our associates received warning that something terrible had befallen her. As she had told us she’d planned to go to New York, I followed with some hope of finding and helping her. It was, however, too late.”

And here, he closed his eyes, brows pinching together in delayed grief and shock.

“You didn’t call the police,” Benson stated.

He took off his glasses and rubbed the spot just above the bridge of his nose.

“Forgive me, Detective,” he answered, “but I’ve found that in my line of work, the police, at best, are ill-equipped to deal with problems, and, at worst, have been an obstacle.”

“Yeah, that whole Dewey decimal system must get really tough,” Stabler drawled.

“What do you do?” Benson asked.

Giles gave Stabler a dry, measured look before looking over at Benson.

“For the last eight years, I have been the trainer, guardian, and adviser of the senior vampire slayer, Buffy Summers.”

He was completely serious.

 

Benson, Stabler, Cragen, and Huang watched from behind the glass as Giles sipped his coffee, trying not to scald his mouth. Fin and Munch were out, running down everything they could on Kennedy O’Shaunnesy, Elizabeth “Buffy” Summers, something called the Watchers’ Council, and any and all disappearances of teenage girls that might fit the MO already noted.

“So…” Cragen began, looking pointedly in Huang’s direction.

“He’s not your guy,” Huang said.

Everyone let their breath out.

“Listen to the way he talked about the victim – an associate, a student, a colleague. There’s no anger in his voice; he isn’t hostile, bitter, or hateful. The grief he showed appears to be genuine, if somewhat repressed. The rage necessary to kill in that manner, more than once…it’s just not there.”

“Okay,” Cragen nodded, “but…vampire slayer?”

“Oh, he’s completely delusional,” Huang added. “The architecture is fascinating. Most paranoids are reluctant to share their delusion, because they fear having it called into doubt. Mr. Giles seems completely reconciled to the fact that no one will believe him, and he’s still offering it up.”

“Yeah, but he knows the victim,” Stabler insisted. “He was there!”

“Is there any forensic evidence to tie him to the murder?” Huang asked.

Benson shook her head. “We took a cheek swab, but that’ll take days to get a DNA match back on. Other than that, just the fingerprints.”

Huang considered the man on the other side of the glass. Giles was staring off into the mid-distance, blinking with impending sleep, wrapping his fingers around his cup of coffee as though it were the middle of winter and he was frozen to the marrow of his bones.

“The only way he might have done it would be if he had completely compartmentalized the murder, if he were a dissociative personality,” Huang grudgingly said.

“Right,” Stabler nodded. “And that is?”

“What most people think of as multiple personalities. It’s extremely rare, if it even exists.”

“Fine,” Benson said, “how do we see the other personality?”

“Stress him,” Huang shrugged his shoulder. “Push him hard enough that the other personality surfaces in an attempt to protect him or gain vengeance. If you do, be ready for a violent reaction.”

They went back in.

 

 

“Who’s the other girl?” Stabler demanded as they stepped into the room.

Giles sat back, refocusing his eyes. “I don’t know. We knew the killer had located her and was hunting her, but we didn’t know who she was. We were too late.”

“Pretty convenient, I’d say,” Stabler barked at him. 

Giles’ head snapped up, and for the first time, he showed anger. “Convenient, Detective?” he spat out. “Perhaps in your mind, but I take the torture and murder of a teenage girl as deadly serious business, especially when the killer will strike again.”

“You know what I think?” Stabler said, shoving Giles’ chair back. “I think you’re the killer.”

Giles stared at him, appalled.

“I think you tortured, killed, and raped that first girl, Kennedy. I think you got a taste for it and did a second girl. I think you think you’re smarter than us and that you’ll get away with this. Think AGAIN.”

Giles was on his feet, hands clenched at his sides, jaw clenched. “If you truly think that, Detective, then you’re as addled as your muscle-bound physique implies.”

They stood, face to face, with only a few inches between them. Stabler switched to his quieter, more menacing voice.

“How about those students you told us about?” he asked. “We’re already getting files back on them. Buffy Summers? You’ve known her since she was fifteen. What’d you do, librarian? Give her a safe place, encourage her to come to you with problems, tell her no one would believe her if she told what you’d done? Gain her trust and then betray it?”

Giles went white with fury.

“I realize, Detective,” he grated, “that you’ve seen and investigated crimes so dire the penalties available must seem laughable in comparison. That does not excuse you. Buffy is the closest thing I have to a daughter in this world. I will not brook a single threat to her well-being. I would kill to protect her, if I had to, and were I given to such…habits, I would remove myself from the circumstances.”

And there it was. Stabler had put thumbscrews to enough perps he could read Giles like one of the librarian’s books. He had killed, or he had the capacity to kill.

But only to protect the girl he saw as his responsibility. His patent disgust at the idea of treating her with anything other than paternal affection was clear as starlight.

It wasn’t him.

“Have a seat, Mr. Giles,” Benson said, putting a hand on Giles’ shoulder and pushing him into his chair.

He landed with a grunt and flexed his shoulder, wincing with pain. He looked up at her again with a curious expression of recognition and worry.

“Detective Benson,” he asked quietly, “do the shadows bother you?”

She froze for a split second and covered it by picking up his file.

“You said the killer would strike again,” she said, flipping through pages without really looking at them. “How do you know?”

Giles considered her for a moment, trying to gauge whether he should repeat his question. Instead, he sat back in his chair while Stabler took a few steps back and leaned against the doorjamb.

“Until the end of Buffy’s first year of tenure as Slayer, there had only ever been one single girl who was the Chosen One. Then, through a series of circumstances, another Slayer was called. Kendra Johnson. Kendra was killed by a vampire in battle. After her death, Faith was called. Two Slayers was unheard of at the time. It had simply never occurred. A year ago, shortly before Sunnydale was destroyed, an associate and friend, Willow Rosenberg, cast a spell that activated all potential Slayers. At the time, it was a strategic move made of sheer necessity. We thought we knew where all the potentials were, more or less, and most of them were with us. Kennedy was one of them. What we’ve learned is that only the girls and young women of the…greatest potential were called immediately after the spell. Since then, the effects of the spell have expanded, rather like a dropping a stone in a pool of water. Younger and older women, outside the normal period when a girl would be called as Slayer, are now being called.”

Both detectives listened, both of them on the verge of throwing their hands up in the air and walking out of the room. There had to be something useful in the man’s delusions or else he wouldn’t have walked into two different murder scenes. Giles watched both of them, and it was apparent from his expression that he knew neither of them believed a word he said.

“On becoming a Slayer, Detective Benson,” he continued, “most girls realize their physical strength has greatly increased, as does their ability to heal, and all of their senses, if they take the time to notice. Slayers are also given to prophetic dreams of an incredibly vivid nature.”

He was looking directly at her when he said this.

“So,” Stabler broke in, taking Giles’ attention away from his partner. Giles wasn’t the only man in the room, after all, who was protective of the women in his life. “About the killer?”

“I apologize,” Giles lowered his chin. “Some background is both necessary and pertinent. The killer is attempting to gather power through the deaths of Slayers. Before last year, he was, of necessity, restricted to stalking and killing potentials, and their deaths were thin gruel to him. The death before Kennedy was a nineteen year old Hispanic woman who had been activated by the spell Willow cast. Because she was a true Slayer, her death gave him enormous power – enough to capture, torture, and kill a trained Slayer. The girl he took yesterday and left this morning was easy prey to him. She was a Slayer as well. He’s stronger than he’s ever been, and he’s identified yet another Slayer. Given the chance, he will do to her what he’s done to the others.”

“What does he want the power for?” Benson asked.

Giles met her eyes, and again, she saw the dead calm and conviction behind his words. “To open a portal into Hell and end the world as we know it.”


	3. When the Shadow Strikes

Another break in the interrogation, and they were joined by ADA Novak. Stabler stepped in, yet another file folder in his hand.

“ME just reported. Blood sample from Giles is the wrong blood type for our perp.”

Cragen sighed. “What can we hold him on? We cannot have this guy out there mucking up our crime scenes.”

“At the very least, you can keep him for a full psych evaluation while you track down the others he’s mentioned – Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg,” Huang answered. “They may be completely fictionalized versions of students he knew at the high school, they may be real and intimidated by his delusions, or they may be feeding into it.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Cragen put his hands on his hips. “Stabler, call the 227, see if you can talk them out of Fontana or Green. We need Summers and Rosenberg. We also need Lahane, if she’s still out there.”

“For now,” Novak added, “keep him on obstruction, tampering with evidence, and aiding and abetting a fugitive. Get the psych eval done, and we’ll go from there.”

“Are we sure we want to put this guy on the defensive?” Munch asked.

“What do you mean, John?” Cragen asked.

“Look, there’s a lot of stuff from this case that just doesn’t add up: the condition of the bodies, the timing of death and when they were found – we just got a call from the dumpster company at the second scene. Turns out, that dumpster was emptied this morning, just after six. ME says the body was killed on site sometime around three. You’re telling me that the driver didn’t notice a dead body with its organs strewn around like party streamers not ten feet from the dumpster?”

“And your point is?” Cragen prompted him.

“Whatever may be going on in this guy’s head, he’s got some sort of information. We’ve got uniforms out at the other three sites he named. First one reported no signs of remains, but then they turned on their UV lights. There were blood stains on all the walls and across the ceiling. I’m just saying, let’s not slap him with anything until we get as much out of him as we can.”

“Elliot? Liv?” Cragen asked.

“Fine by us,” she answered.

“Give it a try, John.”

“No, don’t give it a try, John,” a new voice said.

It belonged to a woman standing just outside the room. She wore her hair slicked back, and her suit was worth more than their monthly salaries combined. Hackles all around the room rose on cue.

“Elspeth Morgan,” she introduced herself, “of the New York offices of Wolfram and Hart. I’ve been engaged on Mr. Rupert Giles’ behalf.”

“Did he say he lawyered up?” Cragen asked the other detectives.

Both Stabler and Benson shook their head. “He pretty much waived all his rights.”

“And I am reclaiming them for him,” the lawyer continued, her presence adding a decidedly greasy taste to the air. “This is a writ of habeus corpus.” She handed Novak a bundle of blue paper. “You are instructed to release Mr. Giles immediately unless you intend to charge him and have him arraigned and before a grand jury before the day is up.”

Novak scanned the document, her lips pressed together. “It’s good.”

Cragen looked furious. “Cut him loose.”

Stabler led Ms. Morgan to the interrogation room.

“Mr. Giles,” he announced, holding the door open. “Your lawyer has secured your release. You are free to go.”

Giles looked up, baffled. “I haven’t engaged a solicitor.”

Ms. Morgan stepped up. “An associate from the Los Angeles office of my firm made the arrangements. Wolfram and Hart?”

Giles’ mood switched from confused to genuine, loathing disgust. “Detective, I categorically refuse representation by that…creature, and I would appreciate it if you would remove her immediately.”

Stabler paused, sighed. “Yeah, much as I would like to help you out there, the writ stands. Doesn’t matter who turns it in. We not only can’t force you to stay, we can’t allow you to stay. I’ll be happy to escort you from the building.”

Ms. Morgan evaporated, smug and well appointed.

“Where is Detective Benson?” Giles demanded.

“She’s busy,” Stabler replied, taking Giles by the arm to lead him out. “Now, let’s stop by the duty sergeant so you can get your stuff.”

“Detective,” Giles dug his heels in and refused to be budged, “you must listen to me. Your partner is in _terrible_ danger. I have every reason to believe that she is the killer’s next target. Do _not_ let her out of your sight. Not for one moment.”

“Right,” Stabler agreed only to get him moving. “I’ll absolutely keep that in mind.”

Giles stopped at one of the desks and grabbed for a pen and scrap of paper.

“Here,” he scribbled as quickly as he could. “You can find me at this address. If I’m not there, my associates will know who you are and be able to help you as well as I can.”

He pushed the piece of paper at Stabler, who took it and pocketed it with every intention of throwing it at Munch and never looking at it.

“Fine, let’s go.”

 

_4:12 p.m. - Squad Room_

With Giles gone, the squad sat around their desks, pulling files and making calls, but there was a definite loss of moral. Their main lead was gone, and they were left with a series of contradictory evidence.

“Word’s back from our other two sites,” Fin said, putting the phone down. “No remains, but UV showed up blood and other body fluids all over the place. Cop down there said the place looked like a slaughterhouse.”

“Let’s start running background on these buildings – owners, tenants, see if any of them match with missing persons records,” Cragen said.

“Every cop I talked to,” Fin continued, “said the place they were in gave them the creeps, like they were being watched. That’s three teams that never talked to each other.”

Benson’s phone rang, and she picked it up.

“Benson. Yeah, okay. Go ahead.” She wrote something down as she listened. “Yeah, send it up to us. Have the parents been notified? No, hold off. We’ll deal with it.”

She hung up, looked at the phone for a moment, and tossed her pencil down.

“That was Letelle, down in the MEs. Our second vic has been identified as Holly Alphonse, sixteen years old. She was reported missing last night from her bedroom.”

“That’s impossible,” Stabler said. “Unless her parents were starving her the past three months.”

Benson shook her head. “They gave detectives their latest picture of her, taken at her brother’s birthday party. She was a healthy weight one week ago.”

“What the hell is this?” Stabler muttered.

He and the others glanced up at the board, which had changed significantly over the past two hours. Both vics were identified, and someone had pinned recent school photos next to crime scene shots, highlighting the difference between life and death. Giles was now a snapshot off to the side, the space given to him and his “associates” a small corner of the board instead of nearly half. A map of the island pinpointed the two murders with stickers designating the other three potential sites. A list of missing persons – all girls between the age of thirteen and twenty – was posted on the frame, stars by the names of those where no suspects had been identified.

Benson, waiting for another phone call to announce the parents of the second vic, doodled on a pad of paper, drawing the sign she’d seen over and over again. The ME had reported that it wasn’t a tattoo, henna, or any other manner of skin decoration she’d ever run across. There were no chemicals present that wouldn’t have been there anyway. It was only that the skin was noticeably darker, a reddish black, at the symbol than anywhere else, almost as if the vic had stenciled the rest of her skin with sunscreen and then sat out in direct sunlight for days.

She looked up at the board, studying the different pictures. Then she glanced at the map and stopped. There were five points on the map. There were eleven points on the drawing she’d done. It wasn’t evenly divided. The symbol looked like it had been painted with a calligraphy brush. The points on the map turned in a clockwise direction from oldest to newest. In her drawing, the eleventh point was in the center. If the killer had started at the twelve o’clock position….the only thing left was the eleventh point.

She shook her head, trying to dispel the mood that had fallen over her. She stood, picked up a grease pencil and stepped up to the map. Checking between her drawing and the map, she lightly marked the center point and the others around the outer circle.

“Whatcha got?” Munched asked.

She frowned in thought. “Not sure. This is the symbol that showed up on the second vic,” she handed him the doodle, not bothering to explain that she’d dreamed it before seeing it in person. “How much of a correlation do you see?”

Munch considered the drawing and the map, holding the drawing closer so that it appeared to be the same scale as the map. “It’s pretty tight.”

“Yeah, but our best estimate still gives us a quarter of a city block to go over for each site.”

“We can start matching up missing girls,” he offered.

“Yeah.”

“Liv,” he paused. “You okay?”

She glanced up at him. That he’d even asked told her just how bad she must look. “I’ll be better when we catch this guy. Then I think a few days off is in order.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he agreed with her.

 

_7:08 p.m. - Home of Holly Alphonse_

Holly’s parents had been in and were spared identifying the body, since they’d had a card with her fingerprints made a few years previously. They had been numb with shock, incapable of offering any information outside of the most mundane. Stabler had sat down and talked with them for quite a while, giving them names and numbers of grief counselors, assuring them that their daughter’s killer would be brought to justice.

“Mrs. Alphonse,” he asked, “did you notice anything usual in your daughter’s activities the past few weeks? Did she start hanging out with different friends? Any fights with old friends or maybe a boy?”

She shook her head. “Holly had…blossomed this past year. She shot up nearly three inches. We were always having to buy her new jeans, and…”

“What is it?”

Mrs. Alphonse looked deeply troubled. “She started having nightmares two weeks ago. She had night terrors when she was just a baby. This was just as bad. She said someone was watching her, from the shadows. It got to where she wouldn’t sleep unless every light in her room was on.”

“I went in there once,” the father said, putting his arm around his wife, “to wake her up. She hit me so hard, I think she broke my nose. She had no idea what she’d done once she was awake.”

Looking closely, Stabler could see the remnants of bruising around the man’s eyes. There had been no reports of abuse. The brother, nine years old, had worshipped his older sister. The family had, until Holly had gone missing, been stable and loving. And he had nothing to give them just now.

 

_8:38 p.m. - SVU Squad Room_

Dr. Huang stood beside the board while the detectives grouped around it.

“We’re working off the presumption that Giles is not the perp, but was pulled to the crime scene because it matched his specific delusion – an unfortunate coincidence that clouded the case,” he began. “The perp we’re looking for is male, single, probably between the ages of 25 and 40. He is intelligent, and he is cocky. At this point, he doesn’t care that he’s left us evidence – the bodies, his DNA, and the symbol. Those he’s doing for his own purposes, and he believes that he's outside the purview of law enforcement.

“Unlike many serial killers, this one is not bothering to taunt us. He is not leaving us clues; he is completely disregarding us.”

“So why the elaborate death?” Munch asked. “Why the sign?”

“It may very well be that he has a delusion similar to Giles. Whereas Giles focuses on protecting the ones he cares for from what he sees as mystical dangers, this man believes he has power over these things and can secure more through the deaths of these girls.”

“This is pretty close to the stuff Giles was spoutin’,” Fin said.

Huang nodded at him. “I believe the link between them is Kennedy. She knew Giles. At one point, she left for New York. She met her killer. Perhaps she talked openly about Giles’ paranoid architecture, perhaps he figured it out on his own somehow. Either way, he’d found his perfect target.”

“Okay, sure,” Munch said, “but that doesn’t explain the emaciation in two girls that a week previous to their deaths had been the very picture of obscene health. It also doesn’t address the whole time and place of death problem we’re looking at.”

Huang put his hands out. “I don’t have answers for that. We need more evidence.”

“Okay, people,” Cragen said, standing. “That’s it for tonight. Go home. We’ll tackle this in the morning.”

 

Stabler found Benson at her locker, pulling her belongings out and closing the combination lock.

“Let me drive you home,” he said.

“I got myself here, Elliot,” she replied. “I can get myself home.”

“It’s not that, and you know it,” Stabler said softly. “Whatever’s going on, you’re in the middle of it. I need to know that you’re okay.”

She looked up at him. “Is that all you need?”

There was a flicker in his expression, something that might have been hurt but could just as easily have been something else, and his jaw tightened. “I need to know my partner’s okay, especially after what’s been coming down the past week. Past that, Olivia, I don’t want anything you don’t want to give me.”

 

_3:28 a.m. - Olivia Benson's apartment_

He woke, not sure why he wasn’t asleep anymore. The apartment was quiet, and even the sounds that filtered in from the street were subdued. Liv slept beside him, facing but not touching him. Her face was slack, and her breathing was slow and even. What had woken him?

The apartment was dark, with only few bars of light thrown in through the windows. Slowly sitting up, he felt his nerves tighten. There was someone in the apartment. There was someone in the shadows. He reached over to the nightstand and groped until he put his hand on his service revolver.

His eyes were adjusted to the dark, but there were still pools of deep shadow he couldn’t penetrate. Silently, he rose, scanning the bedroom. There had been no noise, but he’d been a cop too long not to know when there was trouble hanging over his head. There was a strip about two feet wide between Olivia’s side of the bed and the wall – empty. The corner opposite her, to the right of the desk – empty. On his side, there was nowhere to hide. He stepped up to the doorway into the bathroom and checked. Again, it was empty. As he turned, something in the mirror caught his eye.

He saw his reflection and beyond it, the bed, and beyond that, the wall and the window. Beside the window, in the darkest part of the room, standing over Olivia, was a man. Pale face, dark hair, and a smile that made Stabler’s skin crawl, he was reaching for Olivia. Stabler moved faster than he had in his entire life.

“FREEZE!”

He had his revolver pointed right at the perp’s heart, his hand steady.

There was no one there.

He crossed the floor as Olivia stirred. There was no one, not a single sign anyone had been there, and nowhere for a person to have disappeared to. The window was closed and locked.

“Elliot, wha-“ Liv asked, sleeplogged.

“Stay there,” he ordered. “Don’t move.”

He made a fast circuit of the remainder of the apartment. The front door was closed and locked. All the windows were the same. There was no way in without breaking something, and no sign of breaking. When he returned, Olivia was standing next to the bed, holding a .38 automatic, and looking around with a worried expression.

“What’d you see?” she asked.

“Guy, around six feet tall, black hair, pale skin, standing right over you.”

She said nothing.

Finally, he shook his head. “I’ve got to be seeing things. The case is getting to me.”

“Elliot, read the note I gave you this morning,” Liv replied.

He didn’t have to. He remembered the writing perfectly. ‘Perp: male, late 20s/early 30s, white, eyes?, hair brown/black, approx 5’11”, 190 lbs.’

“Did you see his eyes?” she asked.

“No,” he shook his head. “Shadow was too deep. I did see the bastard’s smile.”

Olivia looked shaken.

“Look, I’m…” he shook his head again. “The case must be getting to me. I’m seeing things that aren’t there. Go back to sleep. It’ll be fine.”

She didn’t believe him. For that matter, neither did he. So while Olivia did climb back into bed and pull the covers over her, while she eventually got back to sleep, Elliot stayed up, keeping an eye on the shadows, until morning.

 

_6:44 a.m._

She’d almost had to push him out of the apartment. Like the previous morning, he’d still needed a shower and a change before work. This morning, though, he was cross with lack of sleep and worry for her and had wanted her to go with him or he would just as soon report to work in day old clothes with a day old beard. Neither was an acceptable option in her mind.

Instead of lingering in bed, she was up, showered, and dressed half an hour earlier than usual. The squad room was there, the case was waiting, and she would much rather be in the company of SVU detectives than staring at the walls of her bedroom. Since her car was back at the squad house, she would need to be the first one there anyways, to deflect any questions about where she was, who she was with, last night.

Instead of the normal drive in, she walked to the closest subway. In August, the streets were light well before seven, so she felt no fear, only a ramped up awareness of every person around her. There were two people directly behind her, following her. She checked the first reflective surface she could find and saw a young man with an eyepatch, of all things, and a redheaded woman.

When she was sure there was no one between them, she pivoted, service revolver in hand.

“Freeze!”

The two of them froze, wide-eyed and put their hands up.

“Who the hell are you?” she yelled, though she already knew.

“Xander,” the young man barked. “Xander Harris. Please don't shoot me.”

“Willow Rosenberg,” the redhead said. “We’re not here to hurt you, Detective Benson.”

“Right,” Benson answered, lowering her gun. “Rupert Giles sent you, right? He’s concerned?”

“Exactly!” Xander agreed. “Can I put my hands down? I promise I won’t do anything stupid with them. Or, you know, at all.”

She nodded.

“Thanks,” he continued. “Nice city you got here. Not nearly as many vampires as we expected. Guess we’ve got Guliani to thank for that.”

Willow elbowed him.

“Right.” He winced. “With the babbling. Stopping now.”

Willow took a cautious step towards her, making eye contact to ensure Olivia was okay with it.

“Detective Benson, we’ve been looking for you since…since we found out what happened to Kennedy,” she said. “Giles figured out yesterday when you were talking to him that you’re a Slayer. We think the killer has figured that out, and he only needs one more Slayer’s death to finish his spell. So, we’re here to make sure that you’re okay.”

Benson holstered her weapon and took a deep breath. “Okay, Willow, Xander.” She nodded at them, they nodded hopefully back at her. “I appreciate that you have the best intentions in this matter, but my department and I are in the middle of a very difficult murder investigation. We will find your friend’s killer and bring him to justice, I promise you. But if I see you around my apartment again – or anyone else’s – or at a crime scene, or at the station house, I will arrest you for obstruction. You are a distraction. You are in the way. Understand?”

Their hopeful looks faded, and they both nodded.

“Now, I’m going to go. I have a subway to catch so I can get to work. I expect you two to go back to your place, report to Giles that I’m fine, and then go home to Cleveland. Someone from my department will contact you when we have news. Remember, if I see you again, I arrest you.”

She turned to leave.

“Detective?” Willow called out.

“Yes,” she looked back, feeling as cross as Elliot had been when she’d kicked him out.

“Stay out of the shadows, okay? That’s where he’s strongest.”

Olivia took a deep breath, turned and walked on.

“Guess that didn’t work out like we’d hoped,” she heard Xander say.

 

_9:30 a.m. - Squad Room_

With the rest of the squad in, they were moving through the leads brought to them. There were three missing persons cases that matched the age requirements in the last six years. The first victim had been thirteen years old, Maddie Harper. She had never been located. The address she’d lived at fell on the same block as the middle of the marks Benson had made on the map.

“Family still live there?” Stabler asked.

“Yeah,” Finn replied. Families with missing children often resisted moving for any reason, hoping that some day, their child might just find their way home. “Oldest boy is out of college now. One kid still at home.”

“Let’s go out there, talk to the parents,” Benson said. “Get a feel for the area.”

“Jeffe,” Stabler called. “We’re heading out.”

“Call if you need anything,” Cragen replied.

 

_10:00 a.m. - Harper family residence_

They had been greeted and welcomed inside with a quiet pain that humbled them. School hadn’t started, so the youngest of the three, Janie, was still at home. She peeked in occasionally, curious, but mindful of her mother’s instructions to get her room picked up.

Mrs. Harper, a gracious woman in her late forties with the expression of a tired Mona Lisa, sat them in the living room, amid a sea of family pictures – two girls, one boy. In none of the pictures, was the boy smiling, not even the earliest ones.

“We haven’t heard from the police in so long,” the woman said, sitting uneasily in her chair, “we thought maybe they’d given up.”

“No,” Benson assured her. “It’s just that sometimes we run out of leads and have to wait until we find a new one. We think Maddie’s disappearance may be connected with other girls who have disappeared over the last six years.”

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” Mrs. Harper put her hands out. “Seems I emptied everything I knew out of my head for the detectives to look at years ago.”

Benson saw Janie peek in from the hallway, a shy girl of thirteen or fourteen, about the same age her sister was when she disappeared.

“How old was Janie when it happened?” Stabler asked, picking up on Benson’s glance.

“Oh, she was just a baby, five years old,” Mrs. Harper said. “They shared a room. Maddie was gone, sometime during the night, but Janie never saw anything.”

“What about their brother?” Benson prompted her.

“Derek?” Mrs. Harper shifted with unease. “He’s the oldest. He was sixteen when it happened. The police talked to him, of course. I suppose they have to figure it’s a family member before it could be anyone else, but they said he couldn’t have done it.”

“Why’s that?” Stabler asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh, he was gone that night. Used to worry me to death. He’d go off wandering God only knows where. Come back with his jeans torn up, like he’d been looking through dumpsters and such for something.”

“What’s he up to these days?” Benson asked.

Mrs. Harper looked down and away and took a deep breath. “Truth is, we haven’t seen him these past two years. He started school, but dropped out without telling us. Spent the money on I don’t know what. His father and he had a bad fight, yelling things no one ought to say to their child or their father. Derek left. He hasn’t called or written or visited since then.”

“What kind of things?” It was Stabler’s turn.

She was getting visibly upset. “That Derek had stolen from us – stolen money, stolen our daughter. Derek said we’d never loved him like we’d loved Maddie, that we loved her better dead than we loved him alive.”

She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “It just wasn’t true, you know? He was always a difficult boy, always took things so seriously, so personally. He hated any attention either of the girls got.”

“Mrs. Harper,” Benson began, trying to find the right way to ask this question, “was there anything unusual about Maddie before she went missing? Did she say or do anything different?”

“Oh, she and her brother fought. They always had before, but it seemed like she was suddenly more willing to stand up to him, especially if she thought he was being mean to Janie. I saw her hit him, once. I thought she was near to killing him.”

Janie was still standing in the hallway, behind her mother. She looked appealingly at Benson, pointed at herself, and made a little talking gesture with her hand.

“Mrs. Harper, if it’s all right with you, I’m going to pour myself another glass of water.”

“I’ll get it, Detective.”

“No, no, it’s all right. Detective Stabler has some more questions for you.”

When she went into the kitchen, Janie was waiting for her.

“Janie, you want to tell me something?”

The girl nodded. “I always did want to tell the police, but I couldn’t while Derek was here. No one’s been back since he left.”

“What is it, honey?”

“I think it was Derek,” she whispered. “No one would believe me, because I was just a little kid when it happened, but I saw the shadows, and Maddie yelled his name. Afterwards, he knew that I’d seen it. He told me if I said anything, he’d kill me, just like he’d killed her.”

“Honey, do you have any idea where he took her?” Benson asked. “This is very important.”

Janie was silent for a moment, a little overcome that someone had finally listened. “When he wasn’t playing around in the dumpsters, he spent a lot of time in the basement. There are a whole lot of little rooms. It’s kind of like a maze, and there aren’t enough lights. I never liked going down there. He would scare me with stories about the shadows and what they did. He said they liked to eat little girls. Mr. Hopkins kept putting new locks on the doors, but that never stopped Derek.”

“Okay, hon,” Benson said. “This is my card. It’s got my work number and my cell phone number on it. If you think of anything else, you call me and tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded, looking solemn and scared.

“And thank you, honey. You’re a very brave girl.”

She turned to go when Janie whispered, “Detective?”

“Yeah, hon.”

“Do you think it’s bad that I hope my brother is dead?”

Benson pressed her lips together for a moment. “No, sweetie. I don’t think it’s bad.”

 

Back in the living room, Stabler had talked Mrs. Harper out of two family portraits. One was old enough that Maddie stood behind her parents, her arm around her sister’s shoulder, as far away from Derek as she could get. The other must have been taken just before the fight that sent Derek off into the unknown. He stood on the opposite side of their parents from Janie in a jacket and tie. He wasn’t smiling. Instead, the light blue eyes under black brows stared implacably into the camera, hinting at strange shadows.

After goodbyes and exchanges of business cards, Stabler and Benson waited until the door closed before turning to one another.

“It’s him,” Benson said. “Janie said he threatened her shortly after Maddie disappeared, said he’d kill her like he killed her sister if she said anything.”

“The ages don’t quite match up,” Stabler said, as they walked down the hallway to the stairs.

“That’s because most serial killers don’t get started until early twenties. Looks like Derek started in his mid-teens. Is the UV light in the trunk?”

“Yeah,” he answered, glancing over at her.

“We need to check the basement. Janie said he might have put her there.”

“You get the light, I’ll talk to the super.”

“Mr. Hopkins,” she told him.

 

“Hate this goddamn warren,” Hopkins said, flipping through his keyring. “Too wet to use as storage, can never get rid of the damn rats and mold like I should be able to, lights don’t work half the time, kids worm their way in here, get lost and start screaming. I swear, if I could get away with bricking up this doorway, I’d do it in a heartbeat. No use for that place, and it gives me the creeps going in.”

“Creeps?” Benson asked, gazing at the water stained ceiling above them. “Like how?”

The super gave her a semi-sheepish look, not happy that he’d admitted to it. “Like there’s someone here, watchin’ me from the shadows. Impossible, of course. This door’s the only way in, and it’s locked for months at a time.”

“I tell you what,” Stabler said, “we don’t find anything, I’ll call a friend over in the building inspector’s office. I’ll bet he can find a reason to shut this place up permanently.”

“Detective, you got yourself a deal,” the super answered, finding the right key and clicking open the lock. He pulled it off the hasp and threw the door open. “Be my guest.”

Benson and Stabler pulled out their flashlights – heavy, sturdy things that could be used to subdue a perp. The air inside the door was markedly cooler than outside. It smelled of old, wet corruption. Stabler braced the door open and followed Benson into what looked like a vestibule.

“Janie said the place was like a maze,” she commented.

“Yeah,” he agreed. There was a thin layer of slippery muck on the floor, untouched for months. “Why the hell would someone build this in a basement?”

“Might not belong to this building originally,” she answered softly. “A lot of this area was completely rebuilt in the 20s and 30s, then again in the 60s.”

They moved silently through the rooms – vestibule, a larger room with several doorways branching off it and probably more rooms off that.

“Okay,” Stabler breathed, “now I understand why the super said this place creeped him out.”

The feeling of eyes watching from the darkness was overwhelming. Strong as their flashlights were, they couldn’t dispel the darkness completely, only push it away. The floors were tiled, and at a guess, Benson thought there might be a mosaic design of some sort underneath. The walls and ceilings were plaster. The few lights were old, clumsy wiring from fifty or more years ago. Neither of them bothered with a light switch.

“Elliot,” Benson called softly. “Look at the ceiling.”

They stood in the room just beyond the vestibule. The light from the boiler room outside seemed pitifully wan. Elliot cast his beam up onto the ceiling with Olivia’s.

“What are those?” she asked.

“Smoke stains,” he answered. “Get them in the church, especially the little chapel where the ceiling’s a lot lower. Comes from burning all those candles.”

Some of the stains, however, were not black or grey, but brown.

“Hang on to my light,” Benson said, bringing the UV light out.

Stabler took it out of her hand and trained both on the ceiling. She turned the UV light on and shined it up as well. Blood stains years old luminesced under the blue light. Working in tandem, they covered the walls, finding stains of blood and other substances that were thrown, spurted, or painted onto the walls.

“Crime scene had to have checked the whole building when she went missing,” Olivia said, hitching her shoulders as though to push away something bothering her.

“Yeah, but don’t forget that weird time problem we’ve got with the other bodies. Plus, they might have figured that if it was locked all the time, no one could have gotten in.”

“I don’t like this, El,” she said, pointing the light at one particular spot. “Look at those stains. They’re layered, like they happened at different times. Derek killed more than just his sister down here.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, we call for backup and a CSU team to case this place. I can only hope there’s something left after all this ti-“

He was cut off by a piercing scream from one of the doorways at the end of the room.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” a girl’s voice sobbed. “NOOOO, DON’T! DADDY!”

“Maureen?” Stabler whispered.

“Elliot, wait!” Olivia yelled, but it was too late.

Stabler tossed her flashlight back at her and pulled out his gun, running to the door, checking with his flashlight, and then down the hall beyond. Benson scrambled after him, cursing under her breath, juggling her flashlight and the UV box while she tried to get to her gun and her radio at the same time.

The scream continued. “DAAAADDDDY! HELP! PLEASE HELP!”

Stabler hit the end of the hall at a dead run, kicked the door in without pausing, and ran his beam over the room, looking for his oldest daughter, ready to kill whoever had hurt her.

The room was empty. The scream cut off in mid-wail. At the precise spot where it came from, the floor was empty, save for a black stone disk. Elliot stepped inside and over, out of the frame of the doorway, ran his light over the room once again, but saw nothing except some small litter on the floor and the stone.

“What the fucking hell is this?” he whispered, his skin turning cold. “Liv?”

There was no answer.

“LIV?” he yelled.

Still no answer. Keeping his back to the wall, he came around into the hallway.

“Olivia! Answer me!”

Her flashlight lay on the floor of the hallway, just past the entrance, rolling back and forth a little from the fall that had left it there. On the floor, he could clearly see his own footprints in the thin mud. To the left of his were Olivia’s where she had run to join them. They went half the length of the hall and stopped.


	4. Chapter 4

Fifteen minutes later, the place was crawling with cops, and Stabler sat outside, in the sunlight, shaking. Cragen showed up, followed by Tutuola, Munch, and Huang.

“Super was standing right outside the door in,” Stabler said without looking up. “No one came past him. SWAT’s been all over the basement. There’s no other way in or out, and there’s nothing in those rooms but some dead rats, a little graffiti, and a years old crime scene.”

Cragen squatted down beside him. “Elliot, we’re going to find her.”

“I shouldn’t have left her, but…it was Maureen,” he tried to explain. “It was her voice, and someone was hurting her. She screamed for me, and I ran.”

“Look,” Cragen said in a forceful enough voice that Stabler looked at him. “We’ve got a lead on this guy, and every cop in the five boroughs is looking for him.”

“He took her,” Stabler said in a voice like dry, hollow bone. “He took her, and he’s going to do to her what he did to those two girls.”

“Not on my watch,” Cragen answered.

He stood and put his hand on Elliot’s shoulder. “We’re on this, now. No one goes home, no one sleeps, no one does anything until we’ve got Olivia back. Munch, Fin, I want you over at her apartment. This guy’s been tracking her for the last couple of days, maybe he hit her place. Elliot, you’re coming back to the station house with me.”

Munch and Fin turned to go when Stabler looked up.

“Captain, before you send them, wait.”

“What is it?”

Stabler stood, realized there was no way around this, and that he stood a very real chance of never seeing Olivia again specifically because of what he was about to say. “Send them over,” he told the captain, “but understand you’re going to find me over there.”

Cragen stopped, looked at him intensely. “What do you mean?” he asked in a deadly quiet voice.

Stabler put his hands on his waist, wishing there were some way he didn’t have to say this, didn’t have to put Olivia out there under that kind of scrutiny. “Things between Olivia and me got personal. You go to her place, you’ll find evidence of that. I don’t want to cloud the investigation.”

Cragen immediately turned and signaled Munch and Tutuola back to him.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked Stabler.

“Since Sunday,” Elliot answered. “Neither of us was looking for it, and we hadn’t decided what to do about it.”

“Hadn’t decided-“ Cragen cut off when the other two detective rejoined them. He walked them over several feet and spoke to them quietly. Stabler stared off into the distance, aware that both Fin and John blinked in surprise, and Munch muttered something about better timing. They left, and Cragen returned to him.

“I don’t even know where to start, Detective, so I won’t,” he said. “But IAB is going to be all over this. There isn’t a worse decision you could have made when it comes to your partner’s safety.”

Stabler nodded, taking whatever Cragen said as his due and deserved punishment. 

“You got personal with your partner and two days later, you’re the last person to see her when she disappears? The only person with her for the last ten minutes? Is there some way this doesn’t make you out to be as big a suspect as Harper?”

Stabler shook his head.

“You’re off the case,” Cragen said. “Give me your gun and your badge. I’ll have a patrol car drive you back to the station house. Go home. Keep your cell phone on you. I’ll keep you posted. But you put one toenail out of line, Elliot, and I will put your ass in lockdown for the duration.”

Without reply, Stabler pulled his weapon and his badge and handed them to his captain. Cragen took them and regarded Stabler with all the abject misery and disappointment of a father let down by his dearest son.

“We’re going to find her,” he told Stabler.

“Yeah,” Stabler agreed. “Just make sure it’s in the next eighteen hours or so, okay?”

He turned to the waiting patrol car with no intention of going home.

 

_11:30 a.m. - Townhouse owned by the Watchers' Council_

The address Giles had given him was a brownstone of dignified age. It didn’t even appear to have been converted to apartments. He climbed the steps and knocked hard on the door, a cop’s knock. In a few moments, there were sounds behind the door – voices and footsteps. There was a moment when someone probably looked through the peephole and saw him, standing there grimly, and then the door was opened.

It was Giles. “Detective, I hadn-“

Stabler cut him off, grabbing him by his shirt and propelling him backward to the wall opposite the door.

“Where the hell is she?” he demanded. “You tell me or so help me God, I’ll-“

Now he was cut off, by a wickedly sharp sword pressed to his throat. The other end was held by a petite, determined young woman with green eyes and blonde hair.

“Generally speaking,” she said, “I have a rule about cops: treat them well. However, that’s my Watcher you’re mishandling, and I want him in one piece. Let go. Now.”

Stabler slowly relaxed his grip and took a step back. As soon as he’d backed away, she dropped the point of the sword – a Japanese katana, he recognized, and far more authentic than any martial arts prop he’d ever seen.

“Thanks. Now, could you close the door? The electric bills for this place are astronomical.”

He reached back and swung the door shut.

“Detective,” Giles began, “what’s happened? Is Detective Benson all right?”

“No, she’s not,” Stabler answered. “She disappeared not ten feet from me while we were checking out a crime scene. I don’t know how, but I think he grabbed her from that room.”

Giles nodded. “We do know how. Come in.”

Buffy sheathed the sword and lead them from the front hall around the stairs to what had previously been the sitting room. It looked like nothing so much as the squad room, what with maps, pictures, and stacks of things distributed through the room. Along with those were stacks of books so old they looked like they belonged in a museum, plus weapons piled in corners and leaned against the wall – axes, pikes, swords, and an entire drift of small wooden stakes. Several people stood around – the young man with the eye patch, a tall, muscular black man, a gaggle of teenage girls, and a woman he recognized as Faith Lehane, the escaped murder convict.

“Where were you?” Giles asked, stepping through the organized chaos over to a map of Manhattan that took up most of the wall.

Stabler recited the address, and Giles immediately pinpointed it on the map.

“We’ve got four other possibilities,” Stabler said. “Laid out, they look a lot like the symbol we pulled off the first two vics.”

“Which one of these?” Giles pointed to a square of wall where several sketches of symbols were posted. It was ridiculously similar to a line-up.

“That one.” Stabler pointed at it.

Giles immediately pulled it off its tack and handed it to the man with the eye patch.

“Xander, take this immediately to Willow. Tell her Detective Benson’s been taken. We need a tracking spell or a location spell of some sort to find her.” Then he turned back to Stabler. “I didn’t realize until I saw the pictures in your office that the killer was leaving a particular mark on them. None of the ones he scrawled on the walls quite match it. There’s a reason for that.”

Giles was about to lead Stabler over to another corner of the room when Buffy cleared her throat pointedly.

“Yes?” Giles asked, distracted.

“Giles, Columbo here has NO idea what you’re talking about, and he thinks you’re crazy to start with. Plus, the only one of us he recognizes, other than you, is Faith. That’s probably not a good thing.”

Stabler, for his part, was beginning to think this was a very large mistake on his part.

“Oh, of course,” Giles agreed, taking off his glasses. “Detective Stabler, I’m sure you remember the brief explanation I gave you in the interrogation room. This is my original student and the senior Slayer, Buffy Summers.”

She gave him a sunny smile.

“The young man I just sent upstairs is Xander Harris. He, Buffy, and Willow, whom you’ll meet in a short time, have been friends for more than eight years. Over there is Robin Wood. He was, at one time, the principal of Sunnydale High School. Currently, he’s working with us to develop a training program for all the new Slayers we discover.”

Wood gave him a nod of acknowledgement, which Stabler answered with his own. Wood gave the impression of a go-to guy, someone who would get the problems solved by sheer determination.

“That is our second senior Slayer, Faith Lahane,” Giles continued.

“Heeeeyyy,” she gave him a long lookover.

“Right,” he answered. “The killer.”

She shut down and turned a shoulder on him.

“We don’t really talk about that,” Buffy murmured.

“You know,” Stabler sighed. “Maybe I should go. I’m out of my mind with worry over my partner, but I am not as far gone as you people are.”

“Detective, I assure you-“

Something upstairs exploded silently, rocking Stabler back and knocking two of the girls down. Clothing flapped in the pressure wave, his ears popped, and several items fell over. Wood caught himself against the wall and grabbed Faith by an arm.

“Willow,” Giles said.

Buffy had already beaten him to the stairs and was taking them three at a time. Stabler followed out of sheer habit. Cops ran towards trouble, not away from it.

Upstairs, the brownstone was just as lovely with hardwood floors, oriental rugs, vases, and Tiffany lamps. Buffy made straight for the second door on the right, grabbing the door handle and shoving so hard she splintered the doorjamb.

“Will!”

Both Willow and Xander were sprawled on the floor. There was no furniture in the room. A pentacle had been sketched and then colored in with the detail of a da Vinci. There were candles everywhere, and a fire was lit in the fireplace. The windows were uncovered, and warm sunlight filtered in through the hazy air.

Buffy was helping Willow sit up. The redhead touched her bleeding nose gingerly. Stabler found a handkerchief in one of his pockets and tossed it to Buffy. Giles checked on Xander, who hadn’t stirred. Stabler knelt beside him.

“What the hell was that?” he asked Giles. “What kind of explosion knocks people off their feet but doesn’t make a sound.”

“A spell, Detective,” Giles replied, checking Xander’s pulse.

Stabler pulled off his jacket, folded it, and put it under the unconscious man’s head.

“I’ll get him,” Willow said, holding the square of white cotton to her nose.

She came over, leaned over Xander and put her fingertips on his forehead. Under her breath, she muttered some words that Stabler couldn’t catch but thought sounded like Latin. A white glow emanated from her fingers, flowed into Xander’s head, and swirled around for a moment.

Stabler blinked, shook his head, and looked again.

The glow faded, and Xander opened his eyes.

“You know,” the young man said, “somehow it’s always a bad thing when I wake up on my back surrounded by worried people.”

Giles gave him a hand up. Willow took the kerchief away from her nose, satisfied the blood had stopped. She crumpled it between her hands, murmured another word, opened her hands, and there was a spotless white square where a bloodied one had been before. She offered it to Stabler, who took it without a word.

“Will,” Buffy chided her, “stop showing off. Columbo’s had a hard enough day as it is.”

“What happened?” Giles asked.

Willow made a face. “I had a line on him. He’s got Detective Benson for sure. I think he must have picked up on me though. Before I could nail down the connection, I caught a wicked backlash.”

“You wrote your limitations, didn’t you?” Giles demanded, rather like an English teacher wanting to know if his student had used correct punctuation.

“Every one. He blew threw them like tissue paper. He’s gotten stronger since yesterday.”

“Okay,” Stabler said. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care that this makes no sense. I don’t care that it’s completely crazy. Just tell me what the hell is going on, and what I need to do to get Olivia back before he kills her.”

Everyone around him stopped and took a deep breath.

“You recall, Detective-“

“Call me Elliot,” Stabler said. “We’re going to be insane together, it should be on a first name basis.”

“Right,” Giles smiled. “Elliot, I’m sure you noticed the condition of the bodies and the timing of their appearance made little or no sense when viewed from a regular investigative perspective.”

“Yeah, we’ve been worrying that problem for a couple of days now.”

“The reason is that the killer is using a sophisticated spell to drain his victims’ life force. Kennedy was a healthy young woman when she arrived in New York,” he explained. “At the moment of her death, the killer literally pulled every spark of life from her body. Her body was drained until it looked like a starvation victim might, and he accomplished it in seconds, not days or weeks.”

Willow, Stabler noticed, had turned and walked away from the group when Giles started explaining Kennedy’s death. She paced, clearly upset. Buffy and Xander both kept a close eye on her. Had the two been close?

“The same thing happened with the second victim,” Giles continued. “The most worrisome part of this is that the killer is using some mechanism to drive his victims towards surrender. He does something to them that leaves them so devastated, they trigger the draining spell by stabbing themselves in the abdomen.”

Stabler closed his eyes. Kennedy and Holly had been girls. Olivia was a grown woman with far more resources. She also had far more scars and nightmares than any girl might.

* * *

She woke, aware that it was pitch black. She ached all over – her head, her shoulder and hip joints, her hands. She was freezing cold, lying on damp, chilly stone. She lay as still as she could, breathing slowly, as she tried to piece together where she was and how she’d gotten there. 

There had been shouting. Elliot was…there as something going on, and Elliot was…she couldn’t piece it together. What did ER docs ask their patients? What day it was, what their name was, what they last remembered.

It was the first Tuesday in August. She was Olivia Benson, a detective with SVU, and she had been somewhere with her partner, Elliot Stabler. They had been talking to someone, investigating a crime – a killing. But she just couldn’t get the fragments in her head to fit together into a clear memory. Head injuries could cause short term memory loss. If that was the case, where was Elliot? Where was she? Even the quietest hospital room had some light source.

Carefully, she waved her fingers in front of her face, blinking as hard as she could. Either she was blind, or it was completely dark. There was no sound at all, except for her breathing and the small movements she made. For some reason, that frightened her terribly. She moved, turning onto her side, and realized she was naked. The floor under her hands was rough stone, maybe granite. Where on earth could she be that the floor was unpolished stone?

With deepening fear, she got to her feet – first crouching, and then slowly standing. The ceiling, wherever it was, was above her reach. Putting her hands out, sliding her feet across the floor, she searched for a wall. In three steps, she found it, the same rough stone. It curved inward, as though she was on the inside of a circle. She felt as high up on the wall as she could, standing on tiptoe. Just where she could barely reach, the wall curved out. She felt the wall, up and down, looking for a door, a hinge, a window, anything. She followed it around until she was sure she’d gone the entire circle at least twice, and she found nothing.

Putting the wall to her back, she stepped out, careful as ever. Using steps with the exact same length, she made it across the room in eleven steps, which made it, she guessed, about fifteen feet across.

It made no sense. Where was she? Who on earth had a room dressed in solid slabs of unpolished stone that was completely light-tight? She realized her breathing had gotten faster and took a deep breath to calm herself. She nerved herself to speak, in case there was someone, anyone, who could hear her.

“Hello?”

Her voice echoed off the hard surface and rattled in the enclosed room, but there was no answer.

 

_12:31 - Townhouse owned by the Watchers' Council_

“So where is she?” Elliot asked.

“We don’t know,” Giles answered, shifting a pile of books over to one of the teenage girls. “We do know it’s not a geographical location in the standard sense of the word. Finding Olivia, however, is not our top priority. Protecting her is.”

“How do we protect her if we don’t know where she is?” Elliot demanded.

“That’s Willow’s job,” Robin answered, bringing Elliot a cup of coffee. “Fresh brewed. I understand cops run on coffee the way the rest of us run on oxygen.”

Elliot took it gratefully, sipping cautiously as Willow joined them, her hands full of what he could only think of as Halloween accessories.

“I’m going to run a high level, non-specific, focused protection charm,” she said, rearranging several bundles of herbs and some candles to sit in the crook of her arm more easily. 

“And what’s that going to do?” Elliot asked.

Willow looked up at him from under her eyebrows with eyes far older than her face. It seemed every time he had an exchange with one of the people here, he had to revise his opinions. Every single person in the house – with maybe the exception of the three anonymous girls looking through books in the study – had seen some sort of action. They didn’t have cops’ eyes – except Robin Wood – but they did have the eyes of soldiers who’d seen a hell of a lot of action.

“I don’t know exactly,” she answered. “That’s the non-specific part. Basically, we pour everything we’ve got into this spell, and it will find its own way around our shadowmage’s defenses. If I attacked him head on, he’d sense it, and I most likely wouldn’t be able to get through. This way, he won’t know about it, and it’s more likely to find whatever weakness exists in the way he’s set things up.”

“Okay,” Elliot nodded. Like when Maureen went on about computer jargon, every individual word made some sense, but put all together, it was incomprehensible mess. “What can I do?”

“Follow me,” and she led him back upstairs to the pentacle.

 

Giles, Buffy, Xander, and Faith were already there, laying things out. Elliot had the strong sense that leadership changed once they were inside the room. Giles was no longer guardian and adviser, he was a consultant. Buffy and the other two were helpers, setting out braziers, still more candles, and very carefully copying drawings from two different books onto the walls and the floor.

“Grab a seat,” Willow indicated the floor. “We haven’t got much time, Detective, but I need you to tell me everything you know about your partner. And…I do mean everything – good and bad, big and small.”

He must have looked doubtful.

“I tried this same spell when we knew the second girl was taken night before last, but I didn’t know anything about her. I think that’s why it failed. The more I know about Olivia Benson, the more I can tailor the spell to her, and the more power we put into it gets to her.”

It made a sort of sense, one that he would have completely disregarded half a day ago, but he no longer had that luxury.

“Liv and I have been partners for over seven years now,” he started. “She’s one of the best cops I know – trustworthy, dedicated, and determined. She can be stubborn to the point of pigheadedness, and we balance each other out, since different things set us off. Her mother was raped, and Liv is the product of that. Her mother was also a raging alcoholic. Liv’s still got some pretty significant issues left over from that.”

Willow sat in front of him and gave him her undivided attention as he continued talking. At one point, someone brought him a fresh coffee, which he gratefully took and drank down to ease his throat.

“We’re ready,” Xander announced.

Elliot’s head snapped up, suddenly aware of how long he’d been talking. He checked his watch and stopped, then put it to his ear. It was still ticking regularly, but there was no way only five minutes had passed.

“It’s okay,” Willow leaned forward and patted him on the knee. “Time was kind of an issue, so I made it so you weren’t really talking-talking, but telling me with your head.”

His eyes narrowed, and he stared at her. There was the same sense he encountered earlier that she was a great deal older than she looked. And a great deal more dangerous. She knew, he realized, all the things that he’d told her about Olivia as well as all the things he’d thought while he’d been speaking. She knew, for instance, not just that they’d gotten personal two nights previously. She knew what Olivia smelled like and the sound she made when she climaxed – a throaty moan that had turned his insides into a knot. She knew about the time Olivia had almost quit their partnership, after he’d called a protective detail on her when a former perp had stalked her. Everything he knew about Olivia, she knew.

“It goes both ways,” Willow told him. “I don’t take something from you without a return. You know about Tara.”

And when she said the name, he immediately saw her – the scent of sandalwood, quiet eyes you could fall into and drift in for days, the blood that spattered Willow when Warren had shot up the backyard and hit both Buffy and Tara. What had become of Warren.

He looked away, unable to meet her eyes anymore. If there were any one thing to convince him that this was real and not the insane maundering of a misplaced Englishman, it was the memory of Tara’s sighs as she stretched in bed on a Saturday morning, and the smell of Warren’s blood when Willow’s magic ripped his skin from his body in one piece.

Faith was waiting for him.

“Yeah,” she said, brushing her hair back. “That happens a lot with Red’s magic. It’s also a pretty solid way of making sure you know this is for real.”

He nodded.

“I’m going to need your shirt,” she gave him a lazy smile.

A soldier, he saw that much. There were whispers of Willow’s memories in his mind. He also saw, in Faith’s glance, the way she held herself, all the things he was used to seeing working at SVU. 

“Your mom was a drunk, wasn’t she?” he asked, unrolling his sleeves.

She blinked at him in angry surprise.

“You should talk to Olivia when we get her back. She’ll understand where you’re coming from.” He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, then handed it to her.

“Yeah, well, let’s not count chickens or anything just yet. This guy’s beaten us the last two rounds.”

Buffy came up with a bowl and brush. She had stripped down to sports bra and yoga pants and stood barefoot, coming up to his shoulder. There were designs painted on her skin – spirals and interlocking circles, lines, chevrons, and triangles.

“Go get ready, Faith.”

Faith shrugged and walked over to the fireplace where she pulled her top off over her head.

“She’s still ticked at you about the killer comment,” Buffy explained. “Hold still. This is going to tickle.”

“You make a habit of working with killers?” he asked.

She looked up at him, choosing her response. “Yeah, I guess I have. Strange how you can’t pop people into tidy little categories. Pretty much everyone in here but Xander has killed a human being. And I’m not excluding you.”

She started painting him, and he held still for it, unhappily feeling like the Candid Camera theme was going to start up any second. It took only a few minutes to cover his torso with symbols. When she was done, she had him take off his shoes and socks, so he stood barefoot on the floor, the same as everyone else. Faith was in a bikini top and shorts that looked painted on. Willow had tucked her blouse into her bra and tied her skirt up on both sides, making a very fetching picture. Giles stood in trousers and barefeet, painted just like him. It seemed strangely appropriate, even though his hair was going grey and he wore spectacles. Xander was the last one to strip his shirt off. He took one look at Elliot, another at Giles, and muttered under his breath about getting back to the gym.

“Elliot, you’re in the center, right here,” Willow directed. “I’m at six o’clock, Buffy, you’re at ten, Faith, you’re two, Giles, you’re eight, and Xander, you’re four.”

Elliot looked at the floor and saw the symbol they’d been chasing down for three days now. Imposed on it, containing and defusing it, was another symbol. Where the first had always made his skin crawl, reminding him a little of a swastika, this one made him think of some trade-off between a yin-yang and a Celtic knot. He found he couldn’t follow the edge all the way through the design. His eyes kept getting lost.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“Stand there,” she said. “Don’t move, no matter what. Try to keep your mind on Olivia, if you can.”

As they took their places, Willow came by and finished lines to seal them in. When she took her place, drawing the last arc of a green and black oil pastel circle around herself, she glanced at the candles, which ignited. The braziers began to smoke, and there was a profound shift as something inside Elliot’s head tilted, fell, and hit the inside surface of his skull with a resounding thud.

It was real. All of it. Everything Giles had said back in the station house, all strange facts of the case that had never added up, the feeling of being watched from the shadows, the man who had stood over Olivia while she slept. It was real.

Willow spoke, and he heard the words but couldn’t grasp them. A deep welling of light began in her, in her chest, and began to spill out of her. Her hair changed from red to white, and the light, which should have blinded him but didn’t, filled every corner of the room, drowning out candle, lamp, and fire.

Her words were thunder, rattling his breast bone, and he remembered he should be thinking of Olivia. As soon as he thought of her, the words Willow spoke fell against him like beams of sunlight landing on his skin.

“ _…beseech Thee, protect our sister.  
We stand before you: friend,  
Lover, sisters, and offer our  
Strength for her.  
We call. We ask. We plead.  
Let not the darkness win.  
We beseech Thee: protect our sister…_”

They stood in a ring of light, no longer inside a room or a building, but external, outside of anything that might give a frame of reference. He looked down at his feet and saw the curving lines of the pentacle, the shadow symbol, and Willow’s counter-symbol, but there were no floor boards beneath. He wondered if Olivia would ever believe him, if he ever got the chance to tell her about this. And then, he could smell her, feel her. She was standing in the circle of his arms – cold, alone, and determined not to give in to fear. I will kill for you, he thought. I will kill for you, I will die for you, I will do whatever I must to get you back. Name the price, I’ll pay it.

And like a book being shut, the spell ended.


	5. Chapter Five

“You believe this crap?” Munch asked his partner as they stepped into Olivia’s apartment. “I’m wondering what else could go wrong at this point.”

“Not that hard to figure,” Tutuola answered. “Kathy left him, he and Liv have always been pretty simpatico. Sunday had all of us in pretty bad shape. I can see it happening.”

“It’s poison,” Munch declared. “They know, we know it. Top it off with the cherry that is IAB crawling up everyone’s ass for a good look, and there’s no way we’re going to get a straight shot at finding the perp before he does her or at clearing Elliot.”

“We do our job,” Finn replied. “If there’s anyone got a chance of hauling herself clear of a perp, it’s Liv. Then all we have to do is deal with the fallout. Where you wanna start?”

“Check her desk, I’ll take the bathroom.”

Normally, checking a vic’s apartment led to a kind of dark banter with speculation on everything from reading habits to cookware. Neither had ever been to Olivia’s apartment before; the SVU as a rule didn’t socialize much after hours. This time, there were no comments called out, just a thorough search, looking for evidence that someone had been after their colleague.

Munch bagged the sheets on the bed and condom wrappers from the trashcan. He found himself silently thanking his Maker that one or both of them had been tidy and hadn’t left anything used in the bathroom trashcan. He found Olivia’s backup gun under her bed. Elliot had lost a sock in the pile of towels just outside the bathroom.

“I got nothin’,” Finn said, joining him in the bedroom. “Liv keeps the place picked up, and my guess is there’s nothin’ on her computer she wouldn’t be okay with us seeing. Mail’s current, no weird notes, she doesn’t even have leftovers in the fridge.”

“Yeah,” Munch surveyed the scene. “Really all we got is what Elliot told us. He’s been here the past couple of nights. No sign of anyone else. Let’s go.”

* * *

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

At the sound of the voice, her head came up. She had been sitting, back against the wall for what seemed like hours. Her eyes continued to adjust until it seemed she could see the outline of her hand when she held it in front of her face. She hoped it wasn’t just wishful thinking.  
A man was squatting on the floor in front of her, staring with an expression of frank curiosity. She knew him.

“Eric?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He had never looked frightening, not even when he’d held a gun to the head of some perfectly innocent woman, not even when she knew he was responsible for the deaths of four people. He had been just a guy, a guy she’d sent up for a rape he hadn’t committed, a guy who’d tried to destroy her life as she had his.

“So, Olivia, how you doing?”

“You’re dead,” she whispered.

“Well, yeah. You killed me. I did tell you there weren’t any bullets in the gun, but you didn’t believe me. Say, how’s it feel to have failed once more?”

“What?”

“Well, you sent me up with a false conviction, pretty much ruined my life. You couldn’t save those people I took care of. You couldn’t save me, but then,” he tilted his head back and forth, “you didn’t really try that hard. Two girls dead in the last two days. Your partner, well, his career’s toast, and it’s your fault. If it weren’t for the fact that he’ll probably take the fall for your disappearance and death…I think he’d be pretty grateful you’re out of the picture.”

“Get away from me,” she whispered.

He laughed. “Can’t, Liv. There is no ‘away’ for you. You’re pretty much stuck here. Now, can you tell me, honestly, what’s it like to be the kind of person who poisons the lives of the people around her?”

She lunged at him, swinging her fist into his face, and landed hard on the floor, scraping arm, knee, and the side of her right hand. She turned over as quickly as she could, but he was gone, and the darkness closed in.

* * *

He was lying flat on his back, not really sure why he was staring at the ceiling. And, he was tired. He couldn’t remember being this tired since Maureen was a colicky baby and he and Kathy worked opposite shifts, trying to keep body, soul, and family together. So, hard as the floor was, he really didn’t mind it. He was annoyed that, for some reason, he couldn’t just give up and sleep. There was something that had to get done. It was so important, he really shouldn’t be lying there looking at the ceiling; he should be doing something.

A head came into view – a young man with an eye patch and dark, unruly hair.

“Yeah, he’s alive,” Xander said, looking up and away from him. “Looks like he could really use a shower, a shave, and a sense of humor, in that order.”

Another face joined him – the determined young woman with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Be nice, Xander. He and Willow took the brunt of that spell.”

“True,” Xander nodded, “and I’m going to go out on a limb that it worked a heck of a lot better than last time. What with the celestial lights and whole floor-go-bye-bye thing.”

He could not for the life of him figure out why these idiots wouldn’t leave him alone. The floor was nice and comfortable. The ceiling wasn’t going anywhere. He just wanted to lie still until everything stopped hurting. He was hoping for sometime next Friday.

“Come on, Elliot,” Buffy said, taking his hand and pulling him up. “You’ll feel better with some food and some caffeine.”

It turned out that when Buffy pulled someone to their feet, there really wasn’t anything to be done but go along with it. Stabler found himself standing, a little wobbly, just as tired as he thought he was, and with a throbbing headache as reminder of their little excursion into the dark – no, scratch that – white arts. Willow stood a few feet away, tended by Giles and Faith. Stabler checked the floor, to make sure it had come back and he wasn’t standing on thin air as he had been a few minutes previously. Sure enough, the hardwood floor was right where he’d left it. The symbols painted and drawn onto it looked subtly different. He turned around, trying to find exactly what the difference was – something about how the color shifted on the yin-yang knot.

“Did this - “ he started to ask.

Xander nodded. “Yep. We don’t ask. We don’t want to know.”

“Right,” Stabler agreed, closing his eyes. Liv. The spell had worked. She had some sort of help right now, nearly three hours after she’d disappeared.

“There’s more coffee downstairs,” Xander offered.

“That would be great.”

* * *

12:48  
SVU Squad Room

“IAB’s here, Captain,” Munch said, putting his head into Cragen’s office for a moment.

“Great,” Cragen muttered. “Send them in, John. Keep working on Harper. We’ve got to find a trace of him somewhere.”

Munch nodded and walked off without introducing the detectives from the Internal Affairs Bureau, a slap in the face from a cop who usually extended every professional courtesy available, albeit with a raised eyebrow.

“Captain Cragen, I’m Detective Sanders, this is Detective Flemming,” the senior partner said, offering a hand. Cragen ignored it.

It wasn’t that any cop on the force disagreed with IAB’s stated mission – to find and deal with corrupt cops. It was that every single IAB detective, every case they touched, every suspect they dealt with, ended up tainted by a greasy film of political expediency. More often than not, good cops got burned, bad cops were tolerated, bungles were covered up, and cases that had been successfully closed were pulled apart and destroyed, and all for a bunch of shields with heavy grudges and a taste for bullying.

“The clock is ticking for my detective,” Cragen snapped. “And I’ve got a shorter supply of patience than I do temper. What do you want?”

Flemming traded looks with her partner. “We understand Benson’s partner, Stabler, is a possible suspect in her disappearance.”

“Well, you understood wrong,” he said, throwing his report on the indecipherable whereabouts of Derek Harper on his desk. “I pulled Stabler off the case because he’d made one bad choice and he’s been under a load of stress lately. I can’t risk losing him on top of Olivia Benson.”

“You call two of your detectives sleeping together under your nose one bad choice?” Sanders asked.

Cragen looked directly at him, which he’d avoided doing until then. All alcoholics could spot each other, though Cragen had been on the wagon even longer than he’d been in charge of SVU. Sanders was a 12-pack a night kind of drunk, and probably mean to boot.

“You want to crucify me, you can wait until we’ve got Benson back one way or the other,” Cragen bit out. “I’ll hand you the nails myself. Until then, get the hell out of my squad house and off my back.”

They left, satisfied they had thoroughly marked their territory. Cragen watched them go with a growing sense of disaster hanging over his head. Neither Munch nor Finn would have said a word to IAB of what Stabler had told him. Someone had probably overheard and mentioned it to IAB when the grilling began. He knew, better than anyone else, that their best possible outcome – they got Liv back in one piece – could still mean that the entire department was torn apart over this. Not from internal pressures. His detectives would watch each other’s backs until Armageddon came and went. No, the powers upstairs would declare the squad a loss, scatter him and his cops to the winds, and maybe, just maybe, start over with a fresh bunch. It suddenly occurred to him that he’d seen his bunch work together for the last time just yesterday, when they’d been grilling Rupert Giles. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a drink this badly.

* * *

Olivia sat in the dark, breathing hard. Her hands still smarted from her landing. She was more frightened than she dare admit. Was she crazy? Was she dead? There was no frame of reference. When Eric had been there, she could see him, but nothing else. Elliot was Catholic. He probably could have told her stories about Purgatory and Limbo that would have made sense compared to these circumstances. Just now, though, she didn’t have the sli-

The lights came on, and she flinched, trying to shield her eyes. She stopped when she realized that her eyes were completely adjusted, and the light didn’t hurt at all.

“He’s lying,” a woman’s voice said.

Olivia was on her feet, ready to take an attacker and make them wish they’d never even thought of trying her.

“That is,” the woman continued, “I mean, if it were him, which it isn’t, he’d be lying, and so since it isn’t really him, it’s like buy two lies for the price of one.”

Liv stared at her. She was a little taller than average, slender, white, dark blonde hair with a hint of red down to her shoulders, curled in a way that made Liv think of WWII movies. Her voice had a strange frankness to it, as if she’d never had it drilled into her that nice girls didn’t say mean things. She was wearing a print dress and heels, and looked, for all the world, like she might run some sort of artsy-craftsy store in SoHo.

“Who the he-“

“Wait,” the woman put out her hand. “I’m doing this wrong. Rules. There are rules, and I do have to follow them.” Then she muttered under her breath, “no matter how stupid they are.”

“What are-“

“No!” the woman snapped at her, though without anger. “Don’t go asking questions unless you really mean it. You only get three. Questions. Stupid rule.” She rolled her eyes. 

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” Olivia yelled at her.

The woman blinked. “Oh, well, that’s actually a pretty good question. Okay, where to start…um, hi!” she waved a hand in a short arc. “I’m here to help. You get to ask me three questions – two, now – and I get to give you the answers. The hell that’s going on is that you were incredibly stupid, ignored Willow’s warning – which, not real bright, even if you aren’t into redheaded Wiccan lesbians – and strolled right into the desmesne of a shadow mage who is-“ and she started ticking off fingers on her hand, “a sociopath, has a grudge against Slayers, incredibly powerful, and determined to bring about the end of the world through your death.”

Liv opened her mouth to say “what?” and stopped. Somehow, she had the feeling that she should play by the rules. Thankfully, the woman wasn’t done talking.

“You walk right into a completely unlit basement labyrinth – hello, Theseus, forget your ball of brains? – that’s seen the murders of eight different Potentials and two Slayers with nothing more than a flashlight and a gun? Like a gun’s going to help you against the forces of evil?” She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes with a contemptuous puff of air.

“This isn’t the basement,” Liv said, trying desperately to keep up with this woman.

“It is, and it isn’t,” the woman answered. “Hey, that was pretty good. Not a question, but it does point me in a good direction to give you more information. Temporally and geographically speaking, this place occupies the same spot on the space-time continuum as the basement you were in. It’s not easy to get to. Your shadow mage –“

“Dennis Harper,” Olivia supplied, coming up with the name from some corner of her brain.

“Well, that point’s debatable,” her companion said, warming to her subject. “He definitely started off as a weird kid who took things too personally, but he left behind most of his humanity several years ago. Anyways,” and she shook her head to reset herself, “the kid did stuff that would make a vengeance demon blanch. Trust me on this. Your shadow mage created this place as a kind of waypoint. You can’t see it from the real world. You can’t get in here without his permission, and you can’t leave without his permission either. He distracted your partner and then pulled you in.”

“Elliot,” Liv whispered, horrified. He’d never forgive himself.

“So,” she continued, “the plan at this point is that he’s going to torture you psychologically until you break. Then he hands you a ceremonial dagger, you stab yourself in the stomach, and his spell is triggered – stripping you of your life essence, the one-time gift of Slayerocity, and your soul in one go. Of course, in doing so, he’s also going to open up a Hellmouth – a straight shot portal into one of the nastier hell dimensions – so that he can feast on the blood, gore, and misery that’ll be unleashed on a metropolis of nine and a half million people. At that point, being disemboweled and raped will be the least of your worries.”

She smiled and shrugged, pleased with herself that she’d done such a good job summarizing the backstory. It was all Olivia could do not to   
ask “are you out of your mind?”

“It could be worse,” the woman offered as a bit of comfort. “There could be bunnies.”

Well, one of them was, Olivia thought, leaning her forehead against the damp stone wall.

* * *

Stabler grabbed a towel as he stepped out of the shower and stopped when he saw the other occupant of the bathroom sitting cross-legged on the counter. The relief he’d gotten from the hot water and caffeine evaporated on seeing her eye him in an overly dramatic way.

“Cut it out,” he said, wrapping the towel around his waist. “You’re no more interested in me than you are in Giles. You’re just looking to play some head games.”

“Yeah?” Faith asked, raising an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because Wood grabbed you to keep you from falling, and a guy like him doesn’t act all protective over a woman like you unless there’s a serious something between them. You’re not partners, you’re lovers, and he’s not the type to tolerate infidelity. So, either you’re even crazier than you look – possible – or you’re just looking to mess with me. Which, right now, Slayer, I really don’t need.”

She laughed, not quite pulling off the nonchalant tone she’d hoped for. “So, the cop thinks he can read people. Big whoop.”

He stopped, leaned against the door frame, and crossed his arms, making sure she could see his biceps and the tat on his right forearm.

“Your mom was a drunk all your life. If she didn’t have a boyfriend to scream and throw things at, she’d take out her jollies on you. My guess is, if you weren’t a Slayer, you’d have a hell of a lot more healed fractures showing up on an x-ray.”

Faith swallowed and looked away, bravado gone.

“She’s dead,” Stabler continued, “or you wouldn’t be here with these folks. Your dad was never on the scene – if you were lucky. If he was, he was the one who molested you when you were a kid. I’m guessing when you were eight or younger. If not him, then grandpa, or Uncle Mike, or some guy that should have protected you until Judgement Day. Your mom wouldn’t believe you, or if she did, she told you it was your fault. Every time you turned around, the people who were supposed to protect you abandoned you, betrayed you, left you out in the cold, waiting for the predators to find you. And even though you’re safe now, you’ll never believe it. You could be the strongest Slayer in the history of the world, and you’d still feel like that little girl.”

She had gone white while he’d spoken, shook her head, and climbed off the counter. “This was a bad idea, Columbo. Never mind.”

She put her hand on the doorknob when he spoke.

“Faith, wait.”

He stayed exactly where he was, knowing that if he were to lift a finger right now, she’d likely feel so threatened she’d rip his arm off and beat him to death with it.

“You showed up for a reason. My guess is you’ve got some questions you think I can answer. How about a fair trade?”

She took a deep breath and let go of the doorknob. It was one of the braver things he’d seen.

“Yeah, okay.”

“What are our odds of getting Liv back?” he asked.

She made a face, and her whole persona slid from temptress to tactician in the blink of an eye.

“Not great,” she said flatly. “First, we’ve got to figure out where he’s got her, and it’s not going to be in the guest bedroom, if you take my meaning. Then, we’ve got to deal with his defenses. There are both magical and walking layers. Red can take most of the magical ones, though she’s getting pretty worn out. The walking ones…well, B and I have been out on patrol every three or four hours in the areas where we found Kennedy and the second girl.”

“Holly,” he put in.

She nodded. “We’ve run across half a dozen vampire nests. Most of them were smart enough to run when they saw two Slayers coming through the door, which means they aren’t new to the game. But he’ll be able to call them all together when he wants them, so numbers are against us.”

She paused, and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Trouble is, Detective,” and he noticed that was the first time she’d called him that, “even if we do get to her before she’s dead, there’s no promise there won’t be a fate worse than death involved. We got thrown into this when Willow woke up screaming three nights ago. It took me and B both to hold her down, and Giles had to pull a magical whammy on her to get her thinking straight.”

“Giles does magic?” he asked, a little surprised. For some reason, it struck him as being similar to Cragen doing shots.

“Not his style anymore,” she shrugged. “I don’t know all the details, but there was some ugly stuff back when the Sex Pistols were the thing.”

“So, Willow and Kennedy were…”

She gave him the look many women offered a man who was overly interested in the romantic tendencies of two women. “They’d broken up a couple of weeks ago, but Willow keeps tabs on all the Slayers – nothing too close, but if one of us is hurt, she knows.”

She paused.

“You’ve got to understand, Kennedy was not real well liked. She was pushy, thought she was the coolest thing to slay since the first Slayer   
was called. But she was still a Slayer.”

He understood. It was the same, after all, with cops. Then, something she said dropped into his stomach.

“You said Willow keeps tabs on all Slayers? Would she know if Olivia’s okay? Has anything happened to her?”

She looked away, and he knew she hadn’t meant to let on to that little fact.

“Faith.”

She nodded. “Red says it’s already started.”


	6. Chapter Six

“You could have fucking listened to me, bitch,” the woman said, stabbing her finger at Olivia. 

“I’m sorry,” Olivia answered softly, standing her ground as well as she could. “I made a mistake.”

“And how many other women did that guy rape because you thought I was lying?” she demanded.

“Four,” Olivia whispered, closing her eyes. She had almost quit when she realized what exactly the price had been for her mistake. Four women. Kidnapped, raped, terrorized.

“Because you looked at me and thought ‘she’s a junkie. She must be lying,’” the woman spat out.

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed with her.

It wasn’t a huge leap to make. The woman in front of her was a poster child for strung-out addicts – too pale, too skinny, track marks on her arms, dark circles under her eyes, and the smell of betrayal and manipulation that most addicts wore like cologne. The vic’s mother had been a well-off socialite, and it had been obvious to Benson when the vic had come in to report her abduction and rape that she was manufacturing a story to cover her latest binge.

She’d been wrong. It had happened, and the perp had done four more women before the case had come back and bitten her in the ass. Cragen had to talk her down from quitting, and it had been the hardest thing in the world to put her purse back in her locker and take up the threads of the investigation like it was any other case.

“How many women did you fuck over just as much as the men who raped them?” the vic asked, getting in Olivia’s face.

“We all make mistakes,” Liv answered, trying to hold her ground. “I made one when you came to me. I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t. I’ve done my best to make up for it.”

“YOUR BEST ISN’T FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH!” the vic screamed.

 

And so it went. She didn’t know for how long. Every time one was done, another would step forward. Vicious, accusing, furious, and damning her for her mistakes. She hadn’t believed them. She didn’t notice a vital clue. She wasn’t there in time. She hadn’t pushed hard enough. She hadn’t looked long enough. And each of these people had been failed by her. Failed, betrayed, ignored, lost.

The worst was that she knew each person’s face, though she couldn’t always remember their names. The cases went all the way back to when she was a raw recruit, on patrol and giving up the idea of long nails because she just couldn’t get her reports typed properly. Then she started seeing the ones she didn’t know about, the ones she hadn’t worked on yet, the people she would fail in the future.

“She was a stupid kid!” he yelled. “She was mad at me because I wouldn’t let her go to a concert, so she made a stupid accusation.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to put her hands between their faces, shield herself somehow. 

“I’m her father,” he roared. “I would never do such a thing!”

“I can’t-“

She turned from him and walked straight into Elliot.

“What was it, Liv?” he asked. His voice was deadly soft. “I get Kathy back, and you can’t stand that, so you said what you did?”

“What? No,” she whispered, backing away. 

“What did you think, that IAB wouldn’t investigate an allegation like that? That a detective made against her own partner?”

She ran into someone behind her, and their hands clamped down on her shoulders, keeping her from backing further away.

“What was it?” he asked again. “You wanted a pound of flesh after I broke it off with you? You had access to everything – fingerprints, hair follicles, clothing fibers. You did a good job.”

“Elliot, no,” she shook her head.

“It took Cragen pulling every string he had to get the evidence re-examined. You think they treat cops well up in Attica? Especially ones up on a rape-homicide?”

“NO!”

She lashed out with all her strength, desperate to escape. In the tangle of arms and fists, legs and feet, she tripped, and landed on the stone floor, bruising her arms and almost breaking a wrist.

In the dark. Breathing so fast, it sounded like she was sobbing. Then she realized she was sobbing. She pulled herself up into a kneeling position and buried her face in her hands, weeping.

“Not bad.”

The lights came back on, and the woman was watching her with detached interest.

“None of the others managed to break loose at all,” she said. “Even Kennedy – who I never really liked, just a little too aggressive with the ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ lesbian chic – she never pulled it off, though she got close a couple of times.”

Olivia looked up at her. She had never hated anyone just as much as she hated the woman in front of her just now. At least the woman noticed.

“Oh, right. We should probably get down to business.” She shook her hair back and crouched down beside her. “What’s your second question?”

That wasn’t too very hard. 

“How do I get out of this and back to the real world?” Olivia asked. “And while you’re at it, give me a name to call you.”

The woman opened her mouth and stopped. “Yeah, well, at least you didn’t waste a question on the second part. It’s Anyanka, but call me Anya. I have better memories from that name anyways. As for the second part,” she paused to take a deep breath, “you can’t get yourself out of this. At least, not by yourself. That is, you can’t get yourself out of here. Remember what I said about his invitation and all?”

“That no one could enter or leave without his permission,” Olivia repeated.

“Exactly. And even though there’s really no here here, you’re stuck. It’s going to take someone from the outside to get you out.”

“There’s no here here,” Olivia repeated, again, using the same inflection so that it wasn’t a question.

“Right,” Anya nodded. “This,” and she patted the stone floor, then stood and walked over to the curved wall, “and this,” she patted the wall, “it’s pretty much all in your head. If you can convince yourself that it doesn’t exist, you stand a chance. That is, of course, if someone can reach you before the ritual disembowelment.”

It felt real enough to Olivia. She checked her hands, which had dots of blood from where she’d scraped them on the last fall. Between the tears on her cheeks, the scratches and bruises she collected, and her response to Anya’s answer, she must have looked discouraged enough to reach even Anya’s cynical heart.

“The good thing is,” Anya said, sitting down beside Liv, “you’re driving this guy nuts.

She stopped herself just before she said ‘really?’.

“I mean, he’s had his hands on you a pretty long chunk of time and you haven’t once actively considered killing yourself,” Anya raised her eyebrows and gave an impressed nod. 

“Tell me more about getting out of here,” Olivia sighed, sitting back against the wall. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this tired.

“Well, the tough part is anyone else getting in here,” Anya started. “Remember, it takes his permission. If someone does get through, though, they’ll be able to see directly in, just like he can. If someone gets in, and you’re still alive, and you can manage to convince yourself that you’re not in a stone prison to the point that you reach out through the circle and someone grabs you right then…” Anya calculated the odds, cocking her head to the side as she ran through numbers in her head. “…Maybe. Of course, just the shock of passing through the barrier could kill you.”

“Fine,” Olivia answered. “How do I stay alive until help comes?”

Anya blinked at her. “Oh, that’s simple. Don’t die.”

And she was gone before Olivia had the sense to try to throttle her.

 

Faith waited for him outside the bathroom as he pulled on clothes left for him, folded, on the counter. At a guess, they must have been Woods. Giles was a little shorter and not as broad across the shoulders. Wood looked like he had a serious strength training regiment going.

“Where’s Giles?” he asked as he came out.

“In the study,” Faith answered.

“Let’s go. It’s time to get moving,” he said, tucking the black t-shirt into his jeans.

“Detective,” Faith called as he passed her.

“Yeah,” he looked back at her.

She stopped and looked uneasily to the side.

“Faith, what is it?”

“You…you called me a killer twice,” she put a hand out in explanation. “But you know that Willow killed a guy. Pretty much so has everyone in here, except Xander. Robin, not for lack of trying on a couple of occasions. The newbies, well, they still haven’t seen their first vamp. But…is that all I am?”

He turned to face her. 

“I read the file, Faith.” He looked at her steadily. “You’ve got at least two murders to your name – that city assistant and some harmless archeology expert. Notes on your file said you killed for pleasure, for gain. I’m a cop. I get to see people killed for love, for lust, for gain, sometimes even out of self-defense. It’s pretty rare to see someone kill just for pleasure, and it’s always ugly.”

“But…I’m not…I’m not like that anymore,” she said in a pleading voice. “Yeah, I did some complete crap. I was really twisted up, you know? I’ve been working so hard, and I think I’ve got some stuff figured out. But…”

“But what?” he asked.

“Is that the only thing I’ll ever be? A killer?”

He couldn’t help but wonder what Huang would make of this woman.

“I’m not the one to decide that, Faith,” he shook his head. 

She nodded, understanding, looked like she was going to pull on her bravado again, but stopped.

“Don’t tell Robin,” she said softly, pushing her hair back, “what you figured out about me, okay?”

His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “Faith, you think he doesn’t know?”

She looked up at him, all dark eyes and pale complexion.

“He was a principal at a high school. If he worked for even a semester, he’s seen it in the students. Maybe he didn’t figure it out as quickly as me. I see it a lot more often. But he already knows.”

He left, giving her time to collect herself before she joined them in the study.

 

“What do you mean we don’t have anything?” Cragen roared.

The squad room was filled with people who froze and looked surreptitiously for a place to hide. There were detectives from five different squads now working directly under Finn and Munch as they scrambled to cover as many leads as they could. The detective Cragen had just shouted at quailed visibly. Finn stepped up behind him and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Cap’n, they have been through everything we can think of. Social Security, state and federal prison systems, hospitals, every narc informant I ever knew about, every blood relative in the tri-state area. No one has seen this guy for two years. Far as we can tell, he hasn’t collected a paycheck, paid a credit card bill, slept under a roof, or taken a piss under his original name or any other. Every single paper trail on this guy gives out by September 2003.”

Cragen looked ready to explode. “We have got a detective out there, people. We don’t just turn over every stone, we turn over the whole goddamn bedrock. We burn down the forest if we have to. We find her. NOW.”

The detectives and officers who had been frozen broke and took off at twice their original speed.

“Captain,” Munch said, coming up with a careful tread.

Cragen collected himself. “Yeah, John, what have you got?”

“Look, I don’t know how much it has to do with Liv going missing, but we are getting the freakiest reports back from CSU onsite in that labyrinth.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Detective there says they’ve had to remove five techs – five – for what he can only describe as a super acute case of the heebie-jeebies. They come out of there saying someone’s watching them – sometimes from behind the walls, sometimes from inside the room, even though they’ve got it lit like Yankee Stadium.”

“What is this?” Cragen asked, rubbing the back of his head. “Some kind of mass hysteria, like that ER incident a couple of years ago?”

John opened his mouth to argue that the ER case hadn’t been mass hysteria either but a sly conspiracy by FEMA to test emergency readiness, but choosing the better part of valor, decided against it. 

“Doesn’t seem like it, as two of them were replacements brought in after the original three had been taken to the ER for psych eval. Couple of them said they saw the guy right there – same description as Harper’s. Of course, no one can put their hands on this guy. Someone shouts, and as soon as everyone else runs in, he’s gone, and you’ve got a tech saying he needs a little quiet time in a rubber room.”

Cragen pressed his lips together, doing his best to juggle priorities and possibilities while God alone knew what was happening to Olivia. 

“Tell the CSU guys to go in with pickaxes and sledgehammers if they need to. Tear the walls down, if that’s what it takes. Find out what the hell is going on in there.”

John nodded and stepped away. 

“Finn,” Cragen called.

Tutuola looked up and stepped in when Cragen signaled for him.

“Go find Elliot and keep an eye on him,” he said quietly. “I know he’d never have gone home. He’s out there looking for Harper. Maybe he’s got something on him, maybe not, but I want you to keep track of him and report back. I’ll keep you posted.”

“You got it,” Finn nodded.

It had been a long time since Cragen had prayed, not since the horrible stretch of time between the news filtering in of a plane crash in the Everglades and the call from the airline, informing him that it was indeed his wife’s flight. Too much time was passing. Their perp, it seemed, had gotten more violent with each death. Every moment Olivia was in his hands was another moment the perp could mess with her. It seemed less and less likely they would get her back in one piece.

 

It was a beautiful spring day, the kind of day you took a mental snapshot of and looked at on days of misery. She sat on a bench in Central Park, in a tank top and shorts – something she hadn’t worn in years. Her arms stretched out on either side. She looked good. She knew she looked good. She was up for promotion and on the road to make detective before she turned thirty. She checked her watch, wondering how long she’d have to wait this time.

Not long, it turned out. An attractive woman with short silver hair was walking towards her. She smiled with pride. It had been a good month. Mom had been sober almost the entire time, a relative miracle since Liv had been out on her own. There had been no late night phone calls, no guilt trips that left her reeling and numb, no visits over to her mom’s place to clean up vomit and shards of glass and put her mother to bed.

She stood and held out her arms. Her mom came into them, and they hugged, wholeheartedly. She grinned until her cheeks ached. And deep within her, a tiny voice wept. No, not this. Don’t take this from me.

“So, what’s on the agenda?” Liv asked, sitting back down, her mom sitting beside her. “We have bookstores, shoe stores, I hear you can still get tickets for Rent, if you move fast enough.”

“Let’s sit down and chat,” her mother said, patting her knee. “We haven’t had a heart to heart in a long while now.”

It should have put her on her guard. There was no such thing as a heart to heart with her mother. When she was sober, it was hours of girltalk with laughter and fun. When she was drunk, it was recriminations and screamed accusations of abandonment and betrayal. It should have put her on her guard, but it didn’t. She was too lost in the beauty of the day and of her mother’s smile.

“Well, okay,” she nodded, still grinning. “You are looking great. What’s going on? New man?”

“No, sweetheart,” her mom shook her head. “I’ve just been doing some thinking, and I came to a realization that helped me clear up a lot of unhappiness in my head.”

“Oh? What’s that?” It couldn’t possibly be that her mother had finally decided to sober up. She had been waiting for that since she’d been old enough to make the connection between the woman she loved with all her heart and the monster that took her place when alcohol was at hand.

“Well, and I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, dear heart,” she patted Olivia’s knee again and gave her a glance, as though testing the waters. What could it be? Had she met someone? It didn’t seem likely, but still… “I realized that, all those years ago, when I found out I was pregnant with you, I should have had an abortion.”

Olivia froze, as she had when she’d been six or seven and heard her mother in the living room or kitchen, throwing things in a drunken rage. 

“What?” Her voice sounded small even to her.

“Well, you remember what I told you, baby, about the man who took advantage of me?”

She remembered. She remembered having it thrown at her anytime there was a disagreement between her and her mother. I was raped, and you were the result. You’re a horrible daughter, and you should never have been born. I gave you everything, and look what you took from me. She remembered far better than she wanted to.

Her mother was still talking, as if she didn’t realize Olivia was sitting there, tears starting to spill down her cheeks. “There was the humiliation. I mean, everyone knew. They knew what he’d done to me. I couldn’t quit. I had to have the money, so I had to put up with their whispers and their leers. One of the managers even came to me and warned me that I’d better not even ask him to help, since he was married, of course. If I hadn’t wanted to get in trouble, I should have kept my legs closed.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I wish I’d been braver. It was still illegal, of course, but I could have found a doctor. For God’s sake, I could have left you at the hospital, if it came to that.”

“Stop,” Olivia whispered. “Please stop.”

Her mother wasn’t listening, though. She was lost in her own thoughts. “It would have been so much easier. I could have quit. I could have gotten a job somewhere else and told that son of a bitch to stick it.”

She came back to herself and turned to Olivia, either not noticing or not caring, that her daughter’s face was wet with tears. “So, what I’ve decided, sweetheart, is that I’m done being a mother. You’re on your own. I gave you the best twenty-four years of my life, and now it’s time for me to reclaim my own. If I’d been smart, I never would have had you, but then, that’s all water under the bridge, right? I can’t change the past, so I’m going to take charge of my future.”

“Mom…” Olivia reached for her, only to have her mother catch her hands and gently push them back. 

“You’re a strong girl,” her mother smiled. “Really you are. You’ll be fine. Now, I need to be going, so give me a kiss.”

She leaned forward, tilting her cheek towards Liv, and Liv, close to throwing up, rebelled, jumping to her feet and backpedaling from the bench.

“Stay away from me!” she yelled at her mother.

“Olivia, that’s rather the idea, isn’t it?” her mother chided. “Now sit back down like a good girl and give me a kiss goodbye.”

“YOU’RE NOT REAL!” Olivia shrieked. “THIS ISN”T REAL!”

Her mother turned stern and got to her feet. “That is enough out of you, young lady! You do not get to make a public spectacle of yourself at my expense.”

She reached out to Olivia, to take her by the wrist, like a small child, and Liv yanked her arm back, pulling her mother off balance.

“Get away from me,” Liv ground out through clenched teeth.

Her mother’s face turned dark with rage, and in a moment, the monster of her childhood nightmares stood before her.

“You selfish little brat!” her mother screeched. “You whiney shit! After all I’ve given you, after all I’ve done! You treat me like this?”

“You’re not REAL!” Liv screamed in return.

Her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her close, but unlike all the fights of her childhood and adolescence, her mother no longer had the upper hand. No police officer left the Academy without a thorough grounding in self-defense. They drilled until blocks and strikes were automatic. She twisted her arm, breaking her mother’s hold, and lashed out in a backhanded strike to the face.

Her mother was thrown back, far harder than she should have been, turning in the arc of her fall until her head met with the corner of the bench in a horrible, meaty crunch. Liv hadn’t seen a great deal of death, not even in two and a half years of patrol, but she knew before her mother’s body hit the ground what had happened.

She screamed, not even knowing she was screaming until her voice tapered off and she sobbed for breath. She was at her mother’s side, pulling her up by her shoulders and shaking her, but there was nothing left to the woman. Instead of her mother, she held a human-size doll of meat, lifeless and floppy.

 

She was still screaming, beating the ground and howling until her voice broke. Then her stomach bucked, and she was throwing up, heaving nothing, as she hadn’t eaten in hours.

Hands, soft and gentle, touched her shoulders, her temples.

“Sshhhhhh,” a voice said, even softer and more gentle than the hands. “Sshhhhhhh.”

She didn’t fight. In the darkness, another woman held her as she sobbed and rocked back and forth, trying to bleed off the pain. When she tired, long before the pain dwindled, she lay in this woman’s arms, curled like a child against her chest.

“Sshhhhh,” the woman said again. 

She was young, younger than Liv, at least. Her eyes were a silent, vibrant blue-green.

“Olivia,” she said in a voice of quiet care, “this is my gift to you. Remember.”

_It was the middle of the night, and they stood in a room that smelled funny and looked scary. Olivia was five. She was proud she knew that number and would tell anyone who asked. She was five. But just then, she stood against her mother’s side, face turned against her mother’s hip, protected by her mother’s hand cupping her shoulder._

_“She’s sick!” her mother yelled. “I don’t care if he just had his head cut off, you get the pediatrician down here. NOW.”_

_“Mrs. Benson, any of the other doct-“_

_“It’s Miss, you sanctimonious seat warmer, and none of your ER quacks are touching my little girl. You’ve got a pediatrician on call, you call him, now, or so help me God, I’ll have you up before your licensing board, and you can explain to them why you didn’t fulfill your duties.”_

_There was scurrying and people blinking in startled fear. Her mother kneeled beside her._

_“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered, combing Olivia’s dark hair back with her fingers. “I know you don’t like it when I shout, but I won’t stand for them not taking care of you.”_

_She put the inside of her wrist against Olivia’s head and made an angry noise._

_“Still burning hot. Come here, baby.”_

_She picked Olivia up and cradled her against her shoulder. Safe, Olivia turned her face towards her mother’s chin and closed her eyes._

She was crying when she woke, but it was the easier, worn out crying of exhaustion.

“She fought like a tigress for you,” the other woman whispered. “You were always her first care, her first love, even if she couldn’t show it in a healthy way.”

“Who are you?” Olivia whispered.

“I’m help from a friend. My name’s Tara.”

“Where’s Anya?” she asked. Her throat ached with the hurt of screaming for so very long. She sat up, taking her weight from Tara, but staying in the same place so that they touched, leg to leg. The contact of another human being, warm and real, was more comforting than she had words to describe.

“She returned. Each of us…we have a job. No, not a job, a duty. We were asked, we said yes, and when it’s time, we’re here, and when we’ve done what we can, within the…the requirements of the duty, we return.”

“Who are you?” Olivia asked again, trying for something more than a name.

“You met Willow?” Tara asked, tucking her chin so she seemed to look up at Olivia.

“On the street. She tried to warn me,” Olivia shook her head. How long ago had that been? How naïve had she been that she hadn’t even considered heeding Willow’s warning.

Tara smiled a tiny, cautious smile. “We were together once. I know she still misses me.”

“So, you’re here because of Willow?” Liv asked, feeling like if she stood, she might fall over, she was so tired.

“I’m here because of you,” Tara answered. “To help. Willow is the connection that allows me to be here.”

“Anya answered questions,” Liv said, rubbing her eyes. “though you’re a lot better at that so far. You…gave me something I’d forgotten for so long, I never knew it was there. Is that your what you do?”

“Some. I can show you what you ask to see. Only true things, only things that have happened, and only three of them.”

“Three. That number keeps coming up,” Liv sighed. “And what happens after you’ve given me those three?”

“Then I return, and one other comes to you,” Tara said.

Liv tried to laugh, but it dissolved into another bout of crying. “Ghosts of Torture Past, Present and Future?”

Tara took her hand and pressed the other to Liv’s cheek. “Maiden, Mother, Crone, the three Fates, the three Graces, it’s a pretty important number.”

“Can you show me Elliot?” Liv asked. “I have to know he’s all right.”

Tara moved her hand up to Liv’s forehead and looked into her eyes. Liv slipped into those calm wells of silence.

_This room was crowded with people and things. Elliot stood beside a table, arguing with another man – Giles._

_“She’s there!” Stabler swore, stabbing a finger into the map. “Everything points to this spot – it’s the scene of the first murder, it’s where Liv disappeared.”_

_“I understand you, Detective,” Giles said, looking up from the maps and books spread across a heavy, oak table. “But we cannot simply rush in there. If it is his…his desmense, it will be bound by powerful protections – protections, may I remind you, that you and your partner blithely stumbled onto in the first place.”_

_“Don’t you think I know it’s my fault she was taken?” Stabler demanded._

_“Not your fault, Detective,” Giles answered, “but an honest mistake made by someone who did not have all the facts he needed, which is why we need to make sure we have all the facts before we tear in there on a rescue mission.”_

_“Guys,” a woman called from the doorway, “we’ve got a complication.”_

_There was a man standing behind her, coolly self-possessed._

_“Finn?” Stabler gaped. “What the hell are doing here?”_

_“Cap asked me to tail you, Elliot,” Finn answered. “Figured you’d head straight for that address you copied John on.” He looked over the room, casing the joint and all those inside. “So, I hear there’s more than one Slayer nowadays. Any a’you had any thoughts about clearing out the vamp nest off of 136th?”_

_Stunned silence met his request. Giles finally cleared his throat and set aside the book he’d put before Elliot._

_“We have other priorities at the moment, though we could certainly take a look at it later.”_

_Finn nodded. “So, this goon’s got Liv, how do we take him out?”_


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Willow slept like the dead on a couch just beside the fireplace. The three girls – Hannah, Dyrenicia, and Rocio – were thumbing through books so old they looked like they belong in the British Museum, or on a movie set somewhere.

“You knew this was for real, and you didn’t say anything?” Elliot asked Fin.

Fin gave him a measured stare. “You know, every now and then, I have ta remind the rest of you that you just don’t get what it was like growin’ up Black in the ghetto. Most things you take my word on, no questions asked. But vamps? You’da thrown Huang at me after you’d put me on the rubber gun squad.”

“How’d you know about Slayers?” Wood asked.

“There were stories, when I was growing up, about a lady who looked out for all of us. There were monsters out in the street. We knew that, though most of us figured it was just another type of pimp or dealer. I’s walkin’ home one night and got jumped. Saw his face and froze. Then that lady, she showed up, and she took care a’ things. Never seen anything like it before or since. Lady moved like lightnin’. She put a piece a’ wood through the guy’s chest, and he was dust. Then she chewed me out for being out so late an’ walked me home. Never forgot about her, even though I never told no one.”

“That was my mother,” Wood said quietly.

“She was a good lady,” Fin nodded at him.

“Yeah,” Wood agreed. “She was.”

“So what have we got?” Fin asked, looking over the table.

“Map of the rooms where Liv was grabbed,” Stabler explained. “A lot of this is going over my head – magic spells and the like.”

“Who’ve we got?” Fin asked, checking the outline of the basement and its rooms. Stabler had a good memory for the layout of the place, but he hadn’t gotten through any of the doorways of the large room, save one.

“You and me, Giles, two Slayers, a redheaded witch, Wood, and Xander,” Stabler recited. 

“We should get Cragen and Munch, too,” Fin said, considering the map. It would be a bitch to get into that room. The vestibule was a handy place for one defender to stop a whole bunch of invaders. The room beyond had seven doorways leading off to God only knew what. They needed more people.

“You think they’re going to show up to fight vamps and a deranged magician with a taste for serial killing?” Stabler asked.

“I think Munch would show up just to prove he was right about something. Cragen’ll come because it’s us. We can convince him when he gets there.”

“CSU still there?”

“Last I heard, and they were having troubles of their own. Don’t think it’d be too hard to get them cleared out.”

“Giles,” Stabler called, “what else do we need?”

“Taking care of that now, Detective,” he answered, pulling the zipper of a duffel bag closed and then coming over. “I agree with you that Harper is most likely holding Olivia in these rooms, in some fashion, but it may very well be in some sort of dimensional enclave.”

There was a pause while Stabler and Tutuola regarded him.

“Let’s try that again, in small words,” Stabler said.

“A…a vest pocket dimension,” Giles amended. “Accessible by Harper when he is on his home ground, and he may very well now have the capability of dumping something out of there onto a place of his choosing.”

Stabler closed his eyes. “That would explain why the death scenes were hours old in a place where people had been through in the last half hour.”

“Exactly.”

“So how do we get in?”

“I won’t know for sure until we get there, but I suspect we’ll need to lure him out, bind him, and then find a way in.”

“How long is this going to take?” Stabler asked.

“Detective, I don’t know.”

Stabler grimaced and tapped the table with his knuckles. “Okay, let’s get everyone together and packed up. I want to be down there before the hour is out.”

 

While Tara was there, it was still dark. She couldn’t see the walls she’d come to know so well, but she could see Tara, who sat beside her as though in a private world of her own warm sunlight. Olivia closed her eyes. She was tired. Tired of being cold, tired of being naked, tired of worrying when she was going to take the next hit and what would happen at the end of it. She couldn’t help but remember Holly sobbing. “It’s all my fault,” the girl had cried. What? Was it really something that had happened or something Holly believed had happened, lost in the delirium of whatever it was Derek Harper was doing?

He was watching her, she knew. The walls that seemed so solid to her were transparent to him. She wondered what he made of her talking to thin air. She doubted he could see either Anya or Tara. If he only saw her talking quietly to nothing, did he think he was wearing her down? And what if – here her mind almost refused to complete the thought – what if Anya and Tara were figments of Harper’s magic? What if they weren’t really help? What if it was some way to wear her down even further? She knew how strong she was, and she didn’t think she could take that on top of everything else.

“Tara,” she whispered, hoping that Harper couldn’t hear everything she said as well as see everything she did, “Giles said that Harper was using the deaths of Slayers to open something called a Hellmouth. What happens if I die?”

Tara looked at her, worry in her eyes. “Well, that only happens if you trigger the spell, and it takes you giving yourself a fatal injury with that specific dagger.”

So, if she died by another cause, it would be okay. At least no one else would get killed. Of course, if worst came to worst, she didn’t have any handy was of killing herself. Maybe suicide-by-bad-guy, so long as she didn’t use his dagger.

When she realized what she was thinking, she sighed and put her head on her knees. Anya had said she was doing well because she hadn’t actively considered suicide. Well, now she had. Was that another point in Harper’s favor, or in hers? Because if it came to that, she’d make sure to screw him over as best she could. She wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to pretend she was warm.

“Tara, Willow and Giles both said that I was a Slayer. What does that mean?”

“I’ll show you,” she said. “But, I’ll have to leave after.”

Liv nodded in acknowledgement, unsure if she were trying to speed things up or trying to distract herself from what was happening. Tara reached over to her, touched her forehead, and a story of incredible dimension blossomed in Olivia’s mind.

 

**6:09 p.m.  
SVU Squadroom**

 

“Captain,” Munch yelled across the room, holding a receiver in his hands, “Fin’s asking for you.”

“Transfer him to my office,” Cragen answered, closing the door behind him. He picked up the extension as soon as the light hit. “Fin, what’ve you got?”

“Yeah, Cap’n, I’m with Elliot now, and we’ve got a lead on Liv.”

“Spill,” Cragen ordered. It was the first good thing he’d heard in hours.

“Okay, Cap, this is gonna be weird, and I’m gonna ask you to put your faith in me and Elliot on this one, because I’m not gonna be able to explain it properly on the paperwork.”

Cragen took a deep breath. There was, he knew, a very good chance that his career would be over, along with Stabler’s, if they didn’t get Olivia back – even if they did get her back in less than good shape. It was time, he thought, to start taking some risks.

“You got it, Fin,” he answered. “What do you need?”

“You and John meet us down at the spot where Liv was grabbed. Get the CSU out of there, but in an orderly fashion – like they’re takin’ some kind of break. Right now, what we know points to anyone in those rooms being in danger. When you come down – just the two of you – bring all the riot gear you can lay hand on.”

Cragen opened his mouth to ask what in holy hell was going on and remembered that he’d promised to have faith in two of his detectives, no matter how crazy it sounded.

“Okay, we’ll be down there in half an hour.”

“See you there, Cap,” Fin answered before hanging up.

Cragen set the receiver back in its cradle and stared at the phone for a long moment. He’d heard other senior cops occasionally talk about the one event that made or broke their career or about the cases that were, in cop parlance, “Chinatown” – inexplicable – or the cases that made good cops put their badges down and walk away. He didn’t think he’d ever heard one with a case that combined all three.

Out in the squad room, he gestured to John to come over. When John was close enough for them not to be overheard, he bent his head towards him and said, “grab your stuff, John, at meet me at the gear locker downstairs. Do it quiet.”

John raised his eyebrows, gave a thoughtful frown and wandered off in the general direction of his desk. Cragen had no doubt that while John would be the soul of discretion, there would be a great deal of internal hand-rubbing and glee at the thought of finally getting to be part of a conspiracy.

 

“Let’s load ‘em up,” Stabler shouted.

People were moving, getting piles of weapons and accoutrements sorted out into final distribution. Buffy kept an eye on it all, clearly used to being the general of her forces. There had been a very brief meeting between him, the senior Slayer, and Giles, where they agreed that while Stabler was in charge of general strategy, Buffy ordered the troops. Willow was the focus. They had to get her in the room long enough to start pulling apart Harper’s defenses. Buffy and Faith were point guards, the rest of them were backup, keeping any and all things thrown at them from reaching Willow. From there, if there was a God in heaven, Stabler would be the one to go in after Liv.

“It breaks down like this,” Stabler laid out, “mission – which is Liv – comes first. Everything can be sacrificed to that. Then team. Then self. Everyone and everything else comes a very distant last place.”

“We’re used to working along those lines,” Buffy answered, “even if we haven’t always spelled it out like that.”

Xander approached him with a scabbarded weapon. Stabler took it, pulled it free and looked down the length of a lethally sharp machete. He couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of damage he could wreak with this thing. Then he saw Xander hand Buffy a long, two-handled sword, and spoke before he could stifle himself.

“She gets a sword?”

Giles gave him a dry look. “She’s far less likely to cut off her own head with it, Detective.”

Stabler glanced back at his weapon. “Point taken.”

Fin had taken a baseball bat and a sharpened mop handle. No one was bothering with guns. It hadn’t taken much explanation to point out all the things that could go wrong with a gun when a wizard had his sights set on you. Besides, not even silver bullets would take out a vamp, which they were expecting plenty of.

“Detective?” It was Faith, just behind his elbow. She had pulled her hair back and was wearing something long sleeved and form fitting. She held out a small bundle to him.

“What’s this?”

She shrugged, still terribly uncomfortable around him, though he’d noticed she’d gone straight to Wood and let him put his arm around her.  
“Red told me that Detective Benson is about my size. I figure, if you make it in, she’s probably going to need a new set of clothes.”

It was a pair of jeans and a blue flannel shirt. They were both old, faded, and softer than down. He looked up and met her eyes.

“Thanks, Faith.”

“Not a problem,” and she immediately backed away.

“Detective,” Giles called.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a cross or a crucifix?”

“And a St. Michael’s medallion.”

“Very well,” Giles nodded. “I think we’re ready.”

 

 

She expected to be alone when the vision Tara gave her ended. Her head was still filled with the smell of dry sand under a hot sun and the feeling of a wooden stake in her hand. The bulk of what she’d seen pressed against all that had happened in the previous hours, and she felt renewed. She was strong, she was alive, she was a Slayer, and she had an idea of just how vital that was. She wanted to stand and demand that Harper face her.

“Time’s running out,” a new voice said.

Liv opened her eyes and saw the third woman she’d expected. Shorter than her, small boned, shoulder length dark hair and eyes that would have danced with mischief had the circumstances been different, this woman held her hands before her as if trying to stop herself from gesturing with fear.

“Ghost of Torture Future?” Liv asked.

“Jenny Calendar,” she answered, “and I have three gifts to give you, but the clock is ticking, and it’s winding down.”

The name tickled the inside of her head. She’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. A contact of Harper’s? Something Giles had said? If she’d had her notebook on her, she would have flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Instead, she stood, aware that it had gotten darker again. She couldn’t see the walls or the floor. She could see Calendar, but it was as though they stood outside at night.

“What are the rules?” she asked her new visitor.

“I can’t kill anyone,” Jenny explained. “I can’t bring anyone back to life or tell anyone anything. The gift has to be just for you. It can’t be a physical item.”

“That’s a lot of limits,” Liv met her eyes.

“I don’t make the rules,” Jenny answered, “but I wanted to be here to help.”

“I appreciate that,” Liv said, taking a step closer, “and here’s the first thing I want…”

 

 

When Cragen and Munch arrived, CSU had already begun packing up. Normally, they would stay on a crime scene until all the evidence had been identified, processed, and sent on its way. The faces of the techs leaving the scene, though, left Cragen with no doubt that something terrible and strange was going on.

“Captain,” the sergeant on scene greeted him. He looked like he’d been pulled backward through a knothole. “I’ve been told to turn the scene over to you.”

“Yeah,” Cragen nodded. “Get your men out of here. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to return.”

The sergeant leaned in a little bit and spoke in a quiet voice. “Captain, you and I both know this is irregular as hell, and if I thought I had a chance of getting an hour’s sleep tonight, I might worry about it. Don’t even tell me what you think is going on, because I don’t want to know. Just let me know when to be back here and what you want me to tell the powers that be.”

“Thanks, Hinojosa,” Cragen answered, patting the sergeant on the shoulder. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get things figured out.”

He and Munch both dumped their loads of flak vests, night sticks, helmets, and shields on the floor of the main basement.

“When did Fin say he’d get here with Elliot?” John asked.

“We’re here,” Elliot answered, stepping into the space.

“Jesus, Elliot,” Cragen turned, “where the hell did you come from?”

He paused when he saw all the people with his detectives.

“Jeffe, I know you said you’d put me in lock up if I put a toe out of line,” Stabler started, stepping forward.

“Forget it,” Cragen snapped. “I just spent the better part of an entire day digging up bupkus on a man who apparently hasn’t existed in the last two years. I’m willing to go out on a limb here. I’m not willing to leave Olivia twisting in the wind any longer.”

Stabler nodded. “Okay, here’s the deal: everything Giles told us was on the up and up.”

Cragen’s eyes darted over to where Rupert Giles stood, carrying several duffel bags on his shoulders. With him, Cragen figured, were Faith Lehane, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and one other man he couldn’t identify.

“Olivia’s a Slayer. Harper has been killing them off for the past few years, building up some kind of mystical power base so he can open a gateway into Hell and party in the world’s wreckage. Giles and the others came here to try to find a friend, our first vic, and to prevent any other killings. He tried to warn us, but we didn’t believe him. Olivia was grabbed here because it’s Harper’s desmesne, his place of power. He’s torturing her, trying to break her so that she kills herself and triggers his spell.”

There was a long moment of silence as Cragen gazed at him over the wreckage of both their careers. It was John who broke the silence.

“El, not that any of us want to come out and say you’ve had a psychotic break with reality, but there’s an old aphorism: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Let’s see some backup for your theory.”

Stabler glanced over his right shoulder. “Willow?”

The redhead stepped forward. “Okay, but I do this, and we’ll trigger every defense this guy has. He’s going to throw it all at us.”

“You heard the lady,” Stabler announced. “Weapons out and at ready.”

It took less than a minute, and Cragen found himself facing a small mob of citizens, criminals, a former suspect, and a soon-to-be ex-cop armed to the teeth with what looked like medieval weaponry. Most especially, his eye was caught by what the trim little blonde was carrying – some sort of cross between a battle ax, a stave, and a sword.

“Scuse me, Captain,” the man he hadn’t figured out yet, stepped past him, completing a defensive perimeter between Cragen and the door into the sub-basement.

“You are?” he asked. 

“Robin Wood. You could say I’m playing guard tonight.”

“You should probably get a vest, a shield, and a nightstick at the very least,” Stabler told him.

Feeling like he was being played for a fool by a man he’d trusted for years, Cragen did as he was told, as did John and Fin. Stabler had already pulled a jacket on. Cragen knew he kept on in his trunk. He’d also strapped a machete to his waist and leg, and there were several sharpened wooden stakes tucked into his belt.

“Buffy,” he called, “it’s all yours.”

“Okay,” she spoke up. “I want my point in place with back up. As soon as Willow gives the word, you’re in through the doorway. Dust anything you see. Keep your back to the wall and don’t let anything get behind you. Giles, Stabler, Robin, Xander, get your flares out. Everyone ready?”

There was a murmur of agreement, and Cragen felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. Whatever this was – crazy, insane, impossible – it was real. Each of the men Buffy named took out a foot long stick, broke off the cap on one end and Robin flicked a lighter they each touched their stick to. The room was filled in violent red light.

“Willow?” Buffy asked.

“Let’s do this,” her best friend replied.

She stepped into the center of the main basement, ten feet from the door into the sub-basement, and folded down until she could touch the linoleum with her hands while keeping her feet under her. Xander and Wood took position to either side, just ahead of her. Buffy and Faith took their places on either side of the doorway, each holding a naked sword. Stabler stood to one side of Faith, Giles to the side of Buffy. Fin took his place beside Cragen and Munch.

“Keep your eyes open and stay out of the shadows, guys,” he said. “It’s gonna get crazy.”

Willow pressed her hands down to the linoleum, and sudden streamers of lightning ran out from them, racing past the people, up the walls, covering the ceilings. They widened, flashed, and a crack of thunder grabbed everyone by their breastbone and shook them violently. The lightning hit the doorway like vines accelerating under an incredible sun, flared, intensified, and broke through.

“GO!” Willow shouted.

Buffy and Faith darted through the doorway, swords ready. Stabler and Giles followed.

Munch looked at his partner, Fin, who was as stoic as ever, and then at his captain.

“That’s good enough for me,” he said, grabbing a shield.

“Me, too,” Cragen answered.

 

 

“…strength,” Olivia said to herself, tracing the grain of a tabletop she had spent far too long looking at. “Strength to make it through this.”  
She was in one of the interrogation rooms, by herself. There was no work on the table, which meant she hadn’t stayed late and spread out on an available surface. There were people behind the one-way mirror. She could hear the mutterings of their discussions. Soundproofing had never been great.

Tired, again. Why was she so tired? Why did her head hurt so much? Why hadn’t she just gone home at the end of the day? She had just said something. It was important. Why couldn’t she remember what it was about? Where the hell was Elliot?

Cragen opened the door and stepped through, followed by Huang. They were both grim. She sat up, trying to figure out what was going on and not coming up with anything. Neither of them greeted her. They took seats at the table and set down some file folders.

“Detective,” Cragen began, “you’ve been made aware of your rights. You can have a lawyer and a union rep here at any time.”

She sat back, baffled. “Cap, what’s going on?”

She felt Huang’s eyes on her, measuring her actions and reactions, making plausible theories based on what he saw, deciding if she fit the criteria for one thing or another. 

Cragen looked up at her, eyes filled with pain. “Don’t, Olivia. Please don’t. I think you owe me more than some dumb show.”

“Olivia,” Huang said gently, “we’ve been to your apartment with a search warrant. We found everything we were looking for. This is not an interrogation. The ADA will be here shortly, and we need to decide what to do with you.”

She watched them, eyes wide, completely at a loss. After a moment of silence, Cragen shook his head.

“This is my fault. I should have seen this coming. Your changes in behavior, the cases you fumbled, the tension between you and Elliot.”

He knew. He knew about her and Elliot. She flushed red with embarrassment, hating that she would have to explain herself, that – at best – there would be a disciplinary note added to her file and she and Elliot would be assigned to new partners, probably in a new squad. She didn’t want to think about what the worst would be.

“Captain, it was a one time thing. We were both under a lot of stress, and-“

“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME, DETECTIVE!” Cragen slammed his fists on the desk.

She rocked back in her chair, shocked. Cragen opened a file folder and spread photos in front of her, photos of victims, raped and strangled, posed and covered as though the killer had tried to make things all right for them after their deaths.

“Six women, detective,” Cragen grated. “Dead by your hand, soaked in forensic evidence implicating your partner.”

She looked down at the photos again and overturned her chair, trying to get away from them.

“No,” she swore, holding her hand out, palm down. “No, I did not do that, Captain. I wouldn’t.” 

She pressed herself back against the wall, unable to get any further away from the pictures, from her captain.

“Don’t even play that game with me,” Cragen snarled, coming around the table at her. “All the times match, all the women can be linked through you just as easily as Elliot. I’ve seen the files on your computer, Liv.”

He stood right beside her, crowding her against the wall. She had never seen him so angry – not with perp, not with a detective who’d screwed something up.

“Thirty years on the force, Olivia, and I’ve never seen anything like this, never even heard anything like this. SVU is over. Every conviction we’ve ever gotten is going to be called into question. Elliot’s career is over. Even after we get him released and the convictions vacated, he’ll never work as a cop again.”

She tried to turn her face away from him, but he followed her line of sight, not giving her a chance. “I didn’t,” she gasped.

“I loved you like a daughter!” he roared. “Things went bad between you and your partner, you could have come to me!”

Bad, a voice whispered at her. Things had gone bad between her and Elliot, as bad as they could possibly get. Images flashed into her mind, of Elliot, of pain and humiliation, of rage. They were things that couldn’t have happened, not with Elliot. He wouldn’t…do that to her.

“Get out of my head!” she screamed, putting her fists to her temples.

There were hands on her elbows, leading her away from the wall and back to the chair. She resisted a little, but Huang was speaking to her in a soft, calming voice.

“Captain,” he looked up from her to her boss, “she’s almost completely dissociated from what she’s done.”

“I don’t care if she’s got five people running around in her head selling Amway,” Cragen put his hands on the table and leaned over. “She stands trial for what she did. Elliot spent a month on death row before we could clear him.”

She could feel him – Elliot – in her mind, sliding long, greedy fingers into her memories and prying things out to use against her, and she howled.

“NOOOOOO! Don’t!”

Pain lit her brain up, forward and back, but neither Cragen nor Huang seemed to notice when she convulsed. Her head hit the tabletop, stunning her for a long moment, leaving her gasping for air. There were tears on her cheeks. Her face was wet, and her nose was filling up. She wiped her eyes, trying to pull herself together, trying to find the core of her strength. When she looked up, both Cragen and Huang were sitting again, across the table from her. Between them stood a woman holding her hands out, trying to reassure her, but no noise came from her when she spoke. Olivia knew her, but couldn’t place her, and neither of the men paid any notice.

“Olivia,” Cragen said in a calm voice, “there’s one thing you can do to clear this all up, make it better, make it up to the rest of us.”

She pressed the inside of her wrists to her eyes and took a long shuddering breath.

“What?”

“This.”

She put her arms down to see what he had pushed across the table. It was a dagger, silver and ornate with a black leather grip. The cross grip was smooth and curved, curling up on one end and down on the other. At the point where the slender blade met the guard, there was a round symbol, one she’d seen a hundred times and feared. She looked at the blade, starting to shiver. Cragen gazed at her, the meaning in his gesture perfectly clear.

“It’s a valid choice,” Huang said when she looked at him.

The woman stood behind them, beseeching with her hands out, palms up.

“You did this, Liv,” Cragen said. “It’s your fault. You can make up for it.”

She wept, putting her head in her hands. “I did not do this,” she sobbed.

“You did,” Huang assured her. "Six women dead, Elliot in prison on death row, countless others betrayed by you…it’s all your fault, Olivia.”

“I don’t remember,” she cried. “I need to remember!”

The woman standing behind Cragen and Huang slipped through them and grabbed Olivia’s hands across the table.

“ _Remember_ ,” Jenny said.

There was a blinding flash of white, burning her eyes, and she heard voices – not Cragen’s or Huang’s, but two men she didn’t recognize.

“They’re inside, Lord, with the witch child.”

“Then stop them,” the other raged. “Tear them to pieces. I’ll be done with the bitch in a minute.”


	8. Chapter Eight

They were inside the sub-basement, and it looked nothing like what Stabler had seen. As Willow stepped inside, a ball of light formed between her hands and expanded outward, swamping everyone. As it hit the floor, the walls, and the ceilings, all that Stabler had been sure were there, dissolved.

The space was three times as large. The walls were black stone, as was the floor. On the floor, patterns of blood, paint, dust, and other things he couldn’t begin to identify scrawled out the symbol he’d seen on those dead girls. Only this time, it was twenty feet across. It was also on the far wall, where the hallway he’d run down to find Maureen had been. This sign, however, wasn’t painted, but looked to be carved into the stone. That wasn’t what his attention was riveted to.

CSU had set up lights throughout the space, plugged into a bundle of extension cords. All of them left turned on, even that large a space should have been as bright as the daylight outside, but shadows swam from the corners of the room, the doorways that lead off in each direction, and the curve of the ceiling. The shadows reached for them, and with the shadows came at least two score vampires.

Willow faltered, stumbling in pain. “He’s hurting her!”

That was all Elliot needed to know as the first vamp reached him. Buffy and Faith had both testified that most of the vamps they’d encountered were young. The one who reached for him certainly hadn’t ever tried hand-to-hand combat with a cop. It was strong as hell, but Elliot didn’t give it a chance to connect. He ducked beneath one fist, jammed the lit end of his flare into its right eye, and when it screamed, he brought the machete around in an arc that went clean through its neck.

There was a second when he felt the weight of the head tug on his flare as the body toppled, and then it exploded into dust.  
He had a second to look around before the next one came at him. He caught a glimpse of Buffy, five feet up in the air, spinning into a kick that knocked a vampire into two others, throwing a stake with her off hand and dusting a fourth. Faith had the weapon he’d seen Buffy with earlier – they must have traded off – and she worked with a flashy style as she staked one vamp with the handle, turned, twisted, and decapitated a second that thought it was sneaking up on her.

The other vamp was on him. It had been a woman once, some stylish midtown maven of a certain age before something had put the bit on her. She clawed at him, hissing and snarling with fangs extended. He pushed the tip of the machete through its throat until it grated on vertebra, swept its legs out from under it, and shoved it down, letting his weight behind the blade sever its spine, dusting it. 

As he got to his feet, he felt the restraints he’d kept on himself crumble, and an unholy rage filled him. These things were between him and his partner. They had hurt, killed, countless innocents. There was no court in the world that could cope with them, and he was in the company of those who slew them whenever the opportunity came to hand. Not one of them would leave this room as anything other than the contents of a dustpan.

 

 

She sat up in bed, gasping.

“Liv? You okay?” Elliot asked, stepping out of the bathroom, toweling his hair.

“Yeah,” she replied, taking a deep breath. “Just a nightmare.”

“Been having a lot of those lately,” he commented, sliding his towel over the bar and then picking his trousers up from a chair. “You going to be okay tonight?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, and found herself looking around for her clock. When was it?

Elliot sat on the bed, his back to her as he pulled on his pants. The clock at her bedside said it was nearly midnight, but for some reason that didn’t make any sense.

“Elliot, what day is it?”

He turned and looked at her. “It’s Sunday, Liv. We got called out on that homicide this morning, remember? I brought you home.”

She remembered that, but she also remembered Monday and some of Tuesday, it seemed like. She lost her train of thought when Elliot stood, grabbed his shirt, and pulled it on.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, and suddenly hated herself for asking. She’d never asked a man to stay the night if he looked like he wanted out.

“Yeah, Liv. I need a full night’s sleep, especially after today, especially considering the hours we’ll put in tomorrow.”

She got to her feet, suddenly mindful of the fact that he was dressed while she was still naked. That was nothing next to the confusion in her head. Why was she so sure that it wasn’t Sunday? That she and Elliot had made love – not once – but five times over two nights?

“You didn’t go home,” she said, trying to get her head to clear out. “You stayed, and when I woke up from that dream, you held me.”

Elliot sighed and rubbed the back of his head before putting his hands on his hips. “Look, Liv, if you need me to stay tonight, just say so. I’ll stay. It’s just that that’s not what I was looking for when we came up here.”

“What were you…”

“You were tired, you were upset,” he made a gesture with his hand. “I wanted to make sure you got home okay, and then, you looked up with that ‘fuck me’ expression, and I….” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, Liv, it was pity, okay? It was a mistake, and I don’t want it to mess up our investigation.”

She reeled, as if he had ripped a strip of skin off of her. “That’s not the way it was,” she said. She knew it wasn’t. He had come back to bed and folded her in his arms and continued kissing her, tasting her, until she had fallen asleep.

Elliot took a deep breath, looking as though he was trying to control his temper.

“Elliot, what is going on?” she asked, stepping up to him.

He looked down at her, and a cynical little smile played on his lips. “Christ, Liv, you really are a mess, you know that? I’ve been carrying you since day one. You’re a worthless cop. Now I find out you’re worthless in bed. Could we just call this ‘over’ and go back to the way things were?”

She recoiled from him, anger and disgust roiling in the pit of her stomach. “Who the hell are you to say that to me?” she demanded.

He gazed at her, apparently amused by her reaction.

“Go to hell!” she yelled, inches from his face.

He caught her by the arm. “Now, see, this would have been good. You’re a hell of a lot sexier like this.” His voice dipped lower and he leaned over her, his hand tightening painfully on her arm.

She automatically knocked his hand away. “Get the hell out of my apartment, Stabler.”

He didn’t. He stepped up to her, until they were almost touching. “Let’s do it again, Liv. Get a little crazy, huh? See if you can stay angry like that.”

She shoved him back. “I said, get out.”

He backhanded her so hard, he knocked her down onto the bed, and for a stunned second, she froze in shock. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough for him to straddle her, put a hand under her jaw to force her head up, and pull out a knife. No, it wasn’t a knife; it was a dagger. She’d seen it before.

“What, not angry?” he asked. “That’s okay. Fear works just as well.”

He dragged the tip of the dagger down her cheek, scratching her. “I’m going to devour you, bitch. When I’m done with you, there will barely be enough left to you for your friends to bury.”

She arched against him, trying to get some leverage for her legs.

“Elliot, no,” she squirmed, pushing at him. “Stop. Don’t do this.”

He laughed.

And at the same second, she remembered, hearing his voice as if he were speaking against her ear. “Liv,” he had said, “you say no anytime, I stop. Okay?”

This wasn’t Elliot.

She grabbed his right arm and twisted until she felt the bones snap under her fingers. His eyes went wide with shock, and his mouth opened. The dagger dropped out of his hand, and she put a foot against his chest and shoved with all her strength. He flew across the room, hitting the door and splintering it. She got to her feet and picked up the dagger as he slid down to the floor.

“Harper,” she said, knowing exactly who she was facing, even if he wore the face of her partner.

He made it to hand and knees, panting, holding his arm against his chest. 

“You bitch,” he screamed. “I’ll feed your corpse to the dogs.”

“You can try,” she said.

He rushed her, fist raised to smash her as hard as he could. She stepped aside, keeping the dagger in her hand low, and let him run himself onto it. It sank into his stomach with no resistance. His eyes bulged out, and he collapsed. She lowered him down to the floor, astonished at how strong she felt. She could have picked him up one handed if she’d wanted.

When she pulled her hand away, it was crimson with blood. Harper looked up at her with Elliot’s face. His expression was disbelieving. She felt the carpet under her feet turn to stone, and they were standing in the cell she’d been in since Tuesday morning, though she had no idea how long that had been. Elliot’s face faded, and she was looking at the adult version of the boy she’d seen in the Harper family photographs – pale skin, dark hair, eyes such a light blue they looked like a wolf’s. With a horrible, throaty noise, he pulled the dagger out of his body.

“You’re not going to win, whore,” he said.

There were shadows leaking out of eyes and mouth. He looked like he was growing thinner.

“ _Vitam tuam voro_ ,” he spat.

Moving far, far faster than he had any right to, he lunged for her, his hands spattering blood and shadows. She moved, but he grabbed her hand, yanked her down, and took her head with both his hands.

“ _VITAM TUAM VORO!_ ”

Darkness stabbed into her, ripping her apart, and she screamed.

 

 

Willow screamed, full throated and agonized, collapsing to the floor. A vamp moved for her, but Xander grabbed it around the neck and shoulder long enough for Giles to stake it. Stabler looked up from the pile of dust he’d just made in time to see Giles, Xander, and Faith regroup around Willow, protecting her until she could pull herself together.

Fin and John were working the left side of the room – Fin knocking them down with long-armed poundings from the baseball bat that would have killed a normal man, and John coming in with the sharpened mop handle and staking with cold accuracy. Cragen and Wood had paired off as well. Buffy and Faith ranged all over the room. They had all been told not to worry about the Slayers. The Slayers would stay out of their way and take care of anything in their paths.

In the span of a few minutes, they had destroyed the vampire cadre sent against him. Stabler didn’t even know how many he’d dusted. It was more than a few. It wasn’t enough.

“Willow?” he yelled.

She was sobbing, trying to get a handle on whatever had come through her link to Liv. “She’s alive,” she called back. “But it’s bad.”

Faith took off the last vamp’s head with a backswing of the battle ax.

“Reform!” Buffy yelled, coming back from the far wall. “We’ve got company.”

There had to be a dozen flares scattered around, battling the shadows and spreading maybe half the light they were supposed to. On the far wall, the symbol twisted, pulled in on itself, and opened up. Shadow flowed out like fog, and a man stepped through. They were looking at their perp.

“You think you can win?” Harper yelled. “I ate your little friend, devoured her. She was the best yet.”

“Then you’re a dead man,” Cragen said, stepping up to stand with Stabler.

“Mess with one cop,” Fin said, “you mess with all of us.”

“Mess with one Slayer,” Buffy continued, “you’re messing with all of us.”

“And lemme tell you,” Faith added, “you really don’t want to be doing that.”

The ten of them stood in a ragged line, facing the shadow mage. He laughed, something that came out almost as an obscene giggle.

“He’s mine,” Willow said, straightening up.

Harper moved, throwing his hands forward as a tangle of darkness exploded from them. Willow didn’t move. She just murmured something, and the tangles hit a shield of scintillating white light, spattering to either side.

“You think you can steal lives?” Willow asked. “Terrorize and kill and dismember, and no one will stop you?”

She spread her arms and hands out, and from each finger tip, a beam of light snaked out like a living thing. They twisted, turned, and then went straight for him.

It was impossible to turn away, and impossible to watch, as the shadow and the light fought. Each time a tendril and a tangle met, a flash blinded those who watched. It took surprisingly little time, though, before the tendrils of light reached Harper, wrapped around him, darted into his mouth, his eyes, and his ears, bound him, and broke the shadows apart into motes that dissolved into nothingness.  
Harper, arms pinned to his side, naked of shadow, and as brightly lit as a surgical patient, fell to his knees, struggling. He was swathed in light. The beams seemed as tangible as rope, different thicknesses binding him until he could only grimace, his eyes darting from face to face.

Giles stepped around Willow, hands dipping into the bag he carried, its strap across his chest. He pulled out a handful of green herbs and some chalk. While Willow held Harper, the two of them still clearly struggling, one against the other, Giles drew a circle around Harper, smudging it in places with the herbs, muttering something under his breath. He went around once, completing the circle. He went around a second time, embellishing the circle with different colors of chalk, writing signs around the edge, and speaking new words. He went around a third time, setting out coins of gold and silver that caught the light and flashed like winking eyes. Finally, he stood behind Harper, spoke a long, fluid sentence in a language Stabler had never heard before, and brought his hands together in a clap. When they met, the clap was silent, but the air in the room flexed, and the rest of the shadows snapped out of existence, leaving them standing in an appallingly well-lit dungeon.

“He’s bound,” Giles announced.

Willow relaxed, letting her hands fall to her sides. She sank slowly to the floor, supported by Wood and Faith.

 

It was dark. It was dark, and she was cold, aching with cold, but she couldn’t even shiver to try to warm herself. Staring blindly into the darkness, she felt tears spill out of her eyes, over the bridge of her nose and down the other cheek. She could move, but she didn’t want to. It hurt too much. Everything hurt too much.

She was pretty sure she was dying.

“Liv,” Jenny touched her hand, stroked her forehead. “Don’t let go, Liv. Help’s on the way.”

“I can’t see,” Olivia said. “Is it still dark?”

“No, baby,” Jenny said. “He hurt you, badly enough that you can’t see.”

“Is the world going to end?”

“No,” Jenny answered. “He screwed up. You didn’t try to kill yourself. You almost killed him. So, even though he hurt you, he can’t use you to open the Hellmouth.”

“Good,” Liv whispered, aware that her voice had faded. “Jenny, you still have one gift for me?”

“Yes,” Jenny said, and Liv realized she was crying.

“I’d like to see, please. If Elliot makes it in time, I want to see him.”

“He’ll make it,” Jenny whispered and kissed Liv on the forehead.

When Jenny sat up, Liv could see. There was no more darkness. The room was still black stone, but there was light coming in from behind her. It wasn’t very bright, but that was all right. Her eyes ached with the little light there was. And it was all right that it was still black stone, though she knew it wasn’t real.

Jenny slid around and picked up Liv’s head, to pillow it on her leg. She took Liv’s hand and held it.

“You’re not alone, Olivia,” Jenny said. 

“I never was,” Liv murmured. “Thank you.”

“Don’t let go,” she repeated. “He’ll be here in time. Just don’t let go.”

 

 

Stabler sheathed the machete at his side and joined Giles and Willow.

“What now?” he asked. “How do I get in to find Liv?”

He hadn’t realized Giles could throw spells around. It was probably a good thing, as Willow looked like ten miles of badly paved road. While they crouched down beside her, Buffy checked the others, making sure every wound was tended to.

“It’s relatively simple,” Giles said. “We need to cast a disguise on you so that you appear to be the shadow mage.”

“Harper,” Stabler said, unwilling to give the perp any sort of title.

“Harper,” Giles agreed.

“He’s sloppy,” Willow said, so tired her words slurred a bit. “If it weren’t for the fact that he had no discipline, no focus to his spells, I wouldn’t have been able to beat him on his own turf.”

Stabler and Giles looked over to the circle, still lit as brightly as a Saharan noon, where Harper was bound hand, foot, and mouth. Harper stared off into the distance, not looking at anyone or anything, probably seeing only the fantasies in his own twisted mind.

“Okay, but I get in there, and Liv sees that guy?” Stabler asked.

“You’ll have to figure out some way to convince her it’s you,” Giles said. “If you drop the disguise while you’re in there, you won’t be able to resume it, and you’ll be trapped.”

“Okay, let’s do this.”

He and Giles helped Willow to her feet. Giles rummaged in his duffel, pulling out new items – candles, more chalk, and a mirror. He began sketching a new circle on the stone floor, setting out the cardinal points after referring to a compass, and drawing a pentacle. Munch stepped up to them as Giles continued to work.

“I’d just like it noted for the record that I was right about this,” he said.

It was said with his usual sang-froid tone of voice, but he had a gash across his forehead, a deep bruise where one vamp had tried to throttle him, and scratches on both hands from the melee.

“So noted,” Stabler smiled at him.

Cragen and Fin joined them.

“Elliot,” Cragen said, meeting his eyes, “I don’t care what shape you find her in, you bring her back to us, okay?”

“You got it, Jeffe,” Stabler nodded.

“Stay strong, man,” Fin offered him a hand, which Stabler clasped. Munch and Cragen added theirs.

“Why couldn’t we have had cops like that in Sunnydale?” Xander asked. “Our job would have been a hell of a lot easier.”

“Big snake mayor?” Buffy answered. “Pretty hard to get promoted to detective when the mayor is a fan of infant sacrifice to the Dark Ones.”

“Elliot,” Giles called. “We’re ready for you.”

He stepped into the circle, which was now connected to Harper’s circle by a series of interconnected circles, loops, and swirls. Resting in the very middle twist was the mirror. Spread out among the remaining design were several candles, flames flickering almost invisibly in the brightly lit room. He tried to follow the drawing, but like the design back in Willow’s room, they twisted away from his eyes and made it impossible. Giles stepped back to stand on one side. Willow took the other side. They both raised their hands, and a new beam of light fell directly on to him, warm and comforting. The beam split, curled, and turned dark. The dark tendrils, which should have been shadows but weren’t, grew towards him, stretched, wrapped around him, and sank into his skin. The world outside his circle shifted, growing imperceptibly taller and altering tone in some indefinable way.

Willow snuffed the candles with a wave of her hand, and the shadows blew apart.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Cragen breathed. 

“I’m going to second that sentiment,” Munch added. “Jew and all.”

Stabler looked down at his hands, and realized that not only were they a different shape, the skin paler, the hair darker, but his clothes had changed as well. When he looked over at Cragen, he saw he stood a couple of inches shorter than he had.

“Good job,” he said, and his voice sounded wrong – higher, pitched forward in his throat and mouth.

“Too good,” Giles said, quietly. Worry was writ large on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Elliot asked.

“We took Harper’s appearance from him,” Willow said. “Remember how when you told me about Liv, I told you about Tara? That was equal. This shouldn’t have been. It would have been just good enough to get you in and out.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he’s been using your appearance,” Giles said. “Most likely, he appeared as you to Olivia while he was torturing her.”

 

 

The pain had started to fade, and she was relieved, but she knew it wasn’t a good thing. She was tired, so tired. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep, but she was aware that it wouldn’t be sleep she fell into. A line from a Shakespeare play she’d studied in high school played through her mind in fragmented loops. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. To make one’s quietus with a bare bodkin. Mr. Hopkins, the English teacher, had explained that a bodkin was a kind of dagger.

Jenny stroked her hair and continued to talk to her, though Liv couldn’t follow the train of her words. She suspected it didn’t really matter too much. It was kind of her to stay. Was she breaking the rules? She’d given Olivia the last of her three gifts. She was supposed to return now, to wherever she had come from, but she hadn’t. Then Jenny looked up, jerking slightly.

“Liv,” she breathed, “he’s here. You have to trust me. It’s Elliot. It doesn’t look like him, but it is. He’s here.”

But Liv didn’t move. She was glad he was there, but she was too tired.

 

Elliot stepped through the portal, feeling a jolt close to vertigo, and a pressuring wrongness from the place he’d entered. Light filtered in through the portal, enough that he could see a large circle inscribed into the rock. Inside the circle was Olivia, lying with her back to him, curled up in fetal position, barely breathing. Her right hand was tucked under her left arm, and he could see the fingers were smeared with blood. Her own?

He ran for her, and collided with the circle, almost falling down. There was a barrier, from the outer edge of the circle running up to the ceiling. It was invisible and impenetrable.

“Liv?” he called. “Olivia!”

He pounded on the barrier, but his fists hitting made no sound, and he understood that Olivia couldn’t hear him. He could see her face, a little bit, from this much closer. There was blood on her temple and in her hair, and a wicked bruise on her cheekbone. She stared blankly ahead.

“OLIVIA!” he screamed.

 

“Olivia!” Jenny yelled at her. “You have to get up. He’s here. He can’t reach you without your help. Now get up!”  
But she was just so tired, so cold. All she wanted to do was rest. She closed her eyes.

 

“OLIVIA!” he sank to his knees and pounded further on the barrier, though he knew it did no good. 

 

“Olivia, don’t do this!” Jenny yelled. “I can’t do it for you. You have to.”

She started to weep. Why couldn’t they just let her rest.

 

“Don’t do this, Liv,” Elliot begged. “Don’t let it be this way. Don’t leave me by myself, partner. I need you.”

 

“HE NEEDS YOU!” Jenny screamed at her. “Get up!”

She grabbed Liv by the shoulders. “I never got to say goodbye to him. I never got to tell him how much I loved him, and he found me like I was a broken doll. Don’t you do this to him.”

 

She turned onto her back, weeping, and Elliot moaned in pain for her sake. She was starved, broken, and alone, and he couldn’t reach her.

“Come on, Liv,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “You’re the strongest person I know. You can do it.”

 

“You can do it!” Jenny said, weeping with her. “You’re a Slayer. You’re strong. You stood up to him more than anyone else ever had. PLEASE!”

She opened her eyes and saw the black stone wall and the ceiling. It wasn’t really there, she thought. Elliot was on the other side. Jenny took her hand between both of her own.

“You can do it, Liv. You’re strong.”

She was strong. She remembered all of it – every psychic knife Harper had stabbed into her. She remembered every time Elliot had touched her, the words he had whispered in her ear as he held her, slid into her. She remembered the squadroom, the conspiracies Munch obsessed over, the time Fin had looked up when she’d arrived at the scene of a homicide and said “nice dress,” giving her a hard time that she’d had to leave a date. She remembered, and she knew she could see.

She turned toward the wall, knowing it wasn’t really there, and she saw the man kneeling beside her. It was Harper.

It wasn’t Harper.

It was Elliot.

 

He saw her eyes open and turn towards him, focus on him, and his heart almost stopped.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Come on, Liv.”

 

She reached out to him, felt the barrier between them, thought to herself “screw Harper,” and pushed through it with all her remaining strength.

 

Her hand came through the barrier, and he grabbed, pulled her through, across the floor, and into his arms. She convulsed, and then her arms went around his neck and she hugged him, weakly, but she hugged him, sobbing. He held her for a second that stretched out forever, then kissed her lips.

He sat, leaning Olivia on one knee and holding her with the opposite arm. He reached out for the bundle of clothes that Faith had given him.

“Come on, Liv,” he said, “we’re getting you out of here.”

“Harper,” she whispered.

“In custody,” he answered, whipping out the shirt.

Gently, but as quickly as he could, he pulled the sleeves onto her arms. She had a dozen defensive wounds on each forearm. Her hands were bruised like she’d been in a barfight. He pulled the shirt over her bare breasts, where there were still more bruises, and buttoned it up to her collarbone.

“He was…” she whispered, “he was inside me.”

He had to steel himself not to flinch. He’d heard far too many vics describe the act of penetration that way.

“He was inside my head,” she wept. “He took something, ripped it away from me.”

Elliot stopped, took her face in his hands and turned it towards him.

“Olivia, you listen to me,” he said softly, “whatever it takes, I will help make this right for you. I’ve got people outside waiting to help, and I will not let anyone hurt you.”

She believed him, though tears still slipped down her cheeks.

He grabbed the jeans, pulled Liv up so that she laid against his chest, and started the process of pulling each pant leg onto hers. She was too pale, too cold, too limp. He had to get her out of there back to where Willow and Giles could help her. He lifted her hips to get the jeans over them. They were too big by inches. She had lost five or ten pounds, and she’d never had the extra to spare. He zipped and buttoned the jeans, stood, picked her up in his arms and made for the portal.

“ _Ostium aperi!_ ” he yelled the words Giles had given him.

The portal opened, and he stepped out, Olivia in his arms.

 

Cragen, Munch, and Tutuola met him within two steps.

“Dear God,” Cragen said, checking Liv’s face. “Over here.”

They had arranged a pallet to lay her on, and Elliot put her down as carefully as he could. Willow sat at Liv’s head and touched her fingertips to Liv’s temples.

“The blood?” Cragen looked up at him.

“Not hers,” Elliot answered. “She’s got bruises and scratches, but no deep injuries. Giles, can you get this goddamn spell off me?”

“Step in the circle,” Giles said, pointing him in the direction.

As he did, he spared a look for Harper, who was staring at Olivia’s unconscious body with violent hatred.

“Wait,” Stabler told him, “we’ll take care of you too.”

Harper looked up at him, saw his eyes, and visibly shrank away.

Giles clapped his hands, which sounded like it normally should, and gestured for Stabler to step out.

“That’s it?” he asked. And apparently it was, as he could tell he was his normal height, and his voice sounded right again.

When he walked back to Liv’s side, the tenor had changed.

“What?” he asked.

Everyone looked up to him, including Willow, who was crying.

“What is it?”

“Elliot, she’s dying,” Willow answered.


	9. Chapter Nine

Buffy caught him before he reached Harper, and he had firsthand evidence as to how strong a Slayer really was. He couldn’t budge when she restrained him. Harper watched him from inside his circle, no longer quite so scared of him, smiling a little against the magical restraints that bound him. Stabler struggled against Buffy’s hands, amazed, even through his rage, at just how strong she was.

“No!” she yelled at him. “Elliot, no! We don’t kill humans.”

“Human?” he grated. “That’s no human. He can’t be arrested. He can’t be tried or put in jail.”

If he could only put his hand on his service revolver, he would put an end to that smirking sociopath. Cragen put a hand on his chest, pushing him back.

“She’s right, Elliot,” his boss said, speaking to him, not Captain to Detective, but man to man. “We don’t kill. Not like this.”

“You can’t kill him,” Giles said, stepping between Stabler and Harper.

“Goddamn it, Rupert!” Elliot yelled. “You, of all people, should understand. You’d kill to protect your Slayer. How many has he killed? Why is it okay for Liv to die?”

“You can’t kill him,” Giles repeated, “because then we’ll have no way to save Olivia.”

Stabler stopped fighting.

“What? How?”

“Willow and I are talking about it now. Come on.”

They sat around Olivia, Stabler at her side, holding her hand between his.

“Now,” Giles said, sitting beside Willow. The others sat, close enough to hear, not so close they crowded. “Olivia’s injuries are not physical, not exactly. It looks as though Harper did perform the draining spell, but since Olivia did not trigger it by using the dagger on herself, it wasn’t successful. He still did quite a bit of damage and gained an enormous amount of power.”

“We have to figure out how to heal Olivia and how to put a stop to Harper, make sure that as soon as we’re done he doesn’t start going after Slayers again. Or anyone, really,” Willow added.

“Can you take the power back from him?” Fin asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Giles responded, taking his glasses off. “But we have to be very careful. It could kill him. If we don’t do it correctly, when we return it to Olivia, it could taint her. That also doesn’t stop Harper from doing it again. He was never naturally gifted with power. He stole it from others, beginning with his sister.”

“This is a disaster,” Cragen said, scrubbing his face. “We’ve been gone for the better part of an hour. The squadroom is going to be nuts. IAB is already on my case, and they know about Elliot and Liv.”

Elliot looked up at him. “IAB is the least of my worries.”

“I understand that, Detective,” Cragen answered, “but I have an entire squad to worry about, not just one detective’s love life.”

Elliot looked away.

Willow and Giles exchanged a long look.

“What?” Stabler asked.

“There’s something we could do,” Willow began. “A spell, but it’s major.”

“Major how?” Munch asked. “You’ve been slinging magic around like you run a sorcerial hash stand.”

Willow gave him a tiny, flattered smile. “It’s major like, normally I’d prep for it for at least a week.”

“We haven’t got that time,” Stabler said.

“I know,” she sobered, “so we’ll have to do it on raw power, like the protection charm, let the spell work itself out.”

“I still have no idea what you’re saying here,” Cragen said.

“It’s a kind of translative/transference spell,” Giles explained. “It will alter certain key aspects of the last few days’ reality. Right now, you could rush Olivia to the best hospital in the city, and they would do everything in their power, but she would still die. This spell would translate her psychic injuries into physical ones – ones that could still kill her, but are treatable with conventional medicine.”

“Here’s how it would go,” Willow said, “we start with removing the power Harper stole from Olivia, Kennedy, and the other Slayers. Olivia gets hers back after we’ve cleansed it. The rest of the power we use to translate things – Olivia’s injuries are physical, and Harper was never a mage, but just a deluded sociopath.”

“So, the murder investigation never went off the rails?” Fin asked.

Willow nodded. “We can’t, and we shouldn’t try to figure out every detail of the translation. The spell will do that for us, better than we could.”

“I hear a very large ‘BUT’ coming up,” Munch said.

Willow nodded. “There’s always a price. With the exception of one anchor from each of us, everyone’s memories of the last several days will be altered.”

“How far back?” Elliot asked.

“Sunday morning,” she answered. “When Kennedy’s body was found.”

He felt his stomach drop through the floor.

“Sunday,” Cragen repeated, looking directly at him. “That was when you and Liv-“

Stabler nodded, cutting him off.

Cragen took a deep breath. “Elliot, it might be for the b-“

“Don’t you say that!” Elliot snarled. “There is no ‘best’ here.”

There was a long awkward silence.

“Elliot,” Willow said softly, “you said, during the protection spell we cast, that you’d pay any price to get Liv back.”

He nodded, aware that he’d never said it aloud, and that certainly didn’t matter with Willow.

“Who’re the anchors?” Munch asked.

“I’ll be one,” Giles said. “Normally, the spell caster takes that burden on, but Willow is too worn. She shouldn’t have to carry the burden.”

“The other?” Fin asked.

“I’ll do it,” Stabler said.

“Elliot, you don’t have to,” Giles said.

Elliot looked directly at him. “I do, and I think you know why.”

“Okay,” Cragen sighed, “Willow casts the spell, Liv goes to the hospital, Harper goes to Bellvue, IAB goes away. What about Liv’s memories?”

“They’ll change with the rest of everybody,” Willow said. “She’ll remember differently from Sunday on, up to when the spell is cast. Elliot, you and Giles will remember both.”

“Let’s do this,” Cragen said.

“Everyone must agree,” Giles warned. “With the exception of Harper. He does not get a say in this.”

“I’m in,” Fin said.

“Me, too,” Munch answered.

“I say yes,” Cragen replied.

Elliot looked down at Liv’s face, pale, still, bruised, and bloody. I promised you I’d make it right, he thought to himself. I just didn’t imagine the price would be this steep.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “I’m in.”

“You got me.” It was Faith.

“And me,” Buffy added.

“I’m there,” Xander said.

“Yes,” Wood added.

“I say ‘yes’,” Giles spoke.

“And me,” Willow finished.

They all stood and looked at each other.

“Hey,” Xander offered his hand, “I’d like to meet you again, on the other side. With no dead bodies around.”

Stabler took it and gave it a firm shake. “Same here. You’re a good man with a stake.”

That started it, soon every person, SVU, Slayer, Watcher and other, was saying hello and goodbye. It took several minutes for every permutation to be made.

“I swear to god,” Cragen said, shaking Giles’ hand, “you probably have an even harder time running herd on your group than I do mine.”

Giles smiled. “I do believe you have me there. In the worst circumstances, I find that baking cookies often pulls them into the kitchen for a quick conference.”

Faith, knowing all the detectives knew about her criminal record, hung back a little. Stabler saw her and nodded at her.

“Faith,” he said when he got her attention. “Far as I’m concerned, you used to be a killer. You’re not anymore.”

She smiled. It was the first relaxed, genuine smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Hope your partner makes it through okay.”

“Me too,” he replied.

“Elliot,” Giles called. “I need you to pick up Olivia. We’re setting up.”

 

 

Someone was snoring. It was the full, vibrating range of a person drowned in sleep, and it was bugging her. She twitched, starting to wake up from the annoyance and brought her hand up to her face to push her hair out of her eyes. There was something on her hand, and that made her even more annoyed.

“Liv,” a man said, stepping towards her.

The snoring was still going, so that put the count of people in her room at three, which was somehow wrong. She turned her head towards the voice, recognizing but unable to place it. She should have been completely awake by now, but her mind just wasn't focusing. Her mouth was incredibly dry and horrible tasting. What had she been doing?

Two hands closed around hers, cupping them gently, and she felt the whatever-it-was taped in place on the back of her hand. She frowned, pushing and shoving things in her mind so she could open her eyes properly. It took a moment to manage, and even then, things just wouldn't fit together properly.

She wasn't at home; the bed was too small, the lights were too bright, the room was too bare. The snoring came from Elliot, sprawled on what had to be the most uncomfortable chair ever made. The man who'd spoken was her captain, Cragen. He was watching her with worried, fatherly eyes, his hands folded around hers.

“Cap...,” she still couldn't reach her face, because her other hand, the left one, was bound up in a sling, secured to her chest. “Wha hap'nd?”

“We...almost lost you,” he said, pitching his voice low and soft, the better to let Elliot sleep.

It didn't make any sense. “I was,” she tilted her head, as if she expected thought and memory to run like water from one corner to the other, “I was at the squad room, looking at the pattern...”

He swallowed. “You took a blow to the head, so you've probably lost some time. You and Elliot went out to a place to canvas the family of a suspect. You checked out the sub-basement, and he was there. He jumped you, Liv.”

She still couldn't figure it out or make it fit. “I don't...Elliot's okay?”

“Yeah,” Cragen nodded. “Though for a while there, I thought we were going to lose him too. You spent three hours in surgery.”

“What...” She grimaced. Her brain just wouldn't work.

“The perp, Harper,” Cragen explained, “had a knife. Elliot got ahead of you in the dark, and the perp went for you. Huang says you matched the profile of his victim pretty well. We don't know exactly what happened. Elliot says you didn't yell. He only heard the tiles break when Harper threw you into a wall. That's where the head injury came from.”

“He didn't...” It was every SVU detective's worst nightmare, to be the vic of the very crime they investigated.

“Didn't have a chance. Elliot put two bullets in him as soon as he saw what was going on. Perp came out of surgery half an hour ago missing his spleen, a chunk of liver, and about ten feet of small intestine.”

“I'm okay?” she asked, taking a deep breath. She realized she'd closed her hand tightly on Cragen's, hard enough to hurt, but he hadn't even noticed.

“You're okay,” he nodded. “It was pretty close. Surgeon said if the knife had hit your shoulder half an inch further in, it would have cut your subclavian artery. You'd have bled out in less than a minute. As it was, they dumped about eight units of blood into you.”

“Elliot,” she struggled to sit up further and see him better.

Cragen put a hand behind her good shoulder and helped her. Elliot was there, in the chair, rattling the accoustic tiles above him. He looked even more tired than she felt – pale, grubby, and sporting at least a day's worth of stubble.

“When did it happen?” she asked.

“This morning,” Cragen answered, and then checked his watch. “Yesterday morning, actually. It's almost two. I sent the others home, but I couldn't have pried Elliot out with C4.”

“The case?”

“CSU's been in that sub-basement since Elliot called the attack in. They've had to change teams twice because of all the crap they're finding. Yeah, we got our guy.”

He helped her lie back down, pulled a blanket up to her shoulders, and smiled at her.

“I've got some calls to make, now that you're awake. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

“Sure, cap.”

“And you don't even think of getting out of that bed until a doctor says you can,” he wagged a finger at her.

He stepped over to Elliot, who had hit the lower frequencies the human ear could register, and gave him a shake. The snore cut off, mid-vibrato, and Elliot jerked awake, sitting up before he was really conscious.

“Easy,” Cragen put a hand on his shoulder, restraining him. “It's okay, Detective. Liv's awake. Don't keep her up for long.”

Elliot was on his feet, scrubbing his face with his hand. The two men put their heads together for a moment and consulted over something in a whisper, which Olivia patiently waited through. Then Cragen clapped Stabler on the back and made his way out.

“I'll see you later today, Liv,” he waved.

“See you,” she answered, completely disgusted by how weak her voice was.

Elliot stood beside her, regarding her with fatigue-reddened eyes. There was the smallest smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Still having a hard time believing I got you out of there,” he murmured.

“Wha' dya mean?” she asked, feeling sleep begin to roll over her.

He opened his mouth and stopped himself. “You need anything?” he asked.

“Water,” she said. She wanted to joke about how something had crawled into her mouth and died, but couldn't seem to find the energy.

He checked the nightstand and found a cup of water that had once held ice, hours ago. It was tepid and probably tasted of 200 year old pipes. He found a straw, put them together, and brought it to her mouth. It was the most wonderful thing she'd tasted in years. Four swallows, though, and she was exhausted. She watched him as he set the cup back down.

“You okay?” she asked. Neither of them had ever been really hurt on the job before.

He turned back to her, watching her with those same calm, tired eyes. If anything, she thought, he'd gone through crazy grief and come out on the other side, some place new and quiet.

“Yeah,” he finally answered. “I'm okay. You better understand, though, that was your one shot. You never get to pull that on me again.”

“Understood, partner,” she murmured.

He took her hand, just like Cragen had. “Think you can get some sleep?”

She nodded, aware that it was more a case of sleep getting her. “Go home, Elliot. Get some rest. You look like hell.”

“Been there and back today,” he agreed. “Didn't care for it.”

She smiled, and her eyes closed. Sleep rolled in like a storm surge, pulling her into its depths. She still felt, though, when Elliot leaned over and kissed the very top of her forehead, felt it enough to turn her face towards him and squeeze his hand. He put her hand down, pulled the covers over it so she wouldn't get chilled, watched her for a few minutes as her breathing slowed down and evened out, and then glanced down thoughtfully and left the room as quietly as he could.


	10. Epilogue

They had hit a slow day, which was fine after a week that started with a serial killer’s spree and paused in the middle with one of their detectives almost getting killed. The SVU squad room was unusually quiet. Word was back from Huang that their perp, one Derek Harper, was a paranoid delusional sociopath. He mentioned that the first hour of the interview gave him enough material to publish five papers. Harper would be found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a maximum security mental facility, the better to protect young women from his obsessions.

Liv was still on medical leave and wouldn’t be back, even on desk duty, until the end of next week. Stabler found himself in the unusual position of actually being caught up on paperwork. He traded off with Munch and Tutuola, taking every other case with one of them so that no one got spread too thin. Cragen had read IAB the riot act when they tried to make noise about Stabler shooting a perp. Did they really want the media to find out that the powers that be had a problem with one highly decorated cop saving the life of another highly decorated cop after the second had been jumped in a pitch black basement by a knife wielding maniac? It turned out that IAB really didn’t want the media to know that.

“Detective Stabler?”

He looked up and found himself staring at Giles. Willow stood beside him, pale, tired, and griefstruck.

“Mister….Giles, isn’t it?” he stood, offering his hand.

“Yes,” Giles answered, shaking hands. “And this is Willow Rosenberg. We’re here to see about signing the release forms to claim Kennedy O’Shaugnessy’s body.”

“Of course,” Stabler answered. “Have a seat.”

He rummaged through the piles on his desk until he came across the correct file. Kennedy’s family had evinced no interest in claiming their wayward daughter’s remains. He couldn’t imagine caring so little for a child, but then there were a lot of things on this job he found he couldn’t imagine.

He opened the file and put it in front of Willow.

“Mr. Giles, can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“Rupert, please,” Giles smiled, “and yes, I would quite appreciate some.”

At the coffee machine, keeping an eye on Willow, who cried as she signed each of the forms, Giles studied Stabler.

“How are you, Elliot?”

Elliot checked to make sure no one was standing too close to overhear. “She doesn’t remember a thing that happened past getting the page to come to a crime scene. Everything after that is this version.”

“That was the point,” Giles reminded him.

“Yeah, I know,” Elliot took a sip of coffee. “I just…part of me thought that because it was so important, to both of us, that there was no way she could forget it.”

“Elliot, she may, some day.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been doing some research on the two spells that Willow cast – the protection and the translation. Willow is a phenomenally powerful magic user, far more so than Harper, though she is at times hamstrung by her fear of using her power too much.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Elliot remarked, thinking back to the memories she’d shared with him.

“True. The protection spell, I haven’t been able to determine the exact shape it took, but…Olivia may have received some additional powers that aren’t normally part of the Slayer repertoire.”

“She’s still a Slayer?”

“Oh, absolutely. Harper tried to destroy that when he…psychically raped Olivia, but she never did break, never let go of her Slayer heritage.”

Elliot stared into his coffee cup. There used to be people who claimed they could read the future by looking at tea leaves. He found himself wondering if the same was possible with coffee grounds.

“She’ll be healed far sooner than you expect,” Giles continued. “And, regardless of how powerful Willow’s spell was, Olivia may remember at some point what happened to her as well as what the two of you shared.”

Elliot found he was having a hard time holding his cup steady, so he took a deep breath.

“Do you have any idea who Jenny is?” he asked Giles.

Giles went pale.

“Rupert?”

“Where did you hear her name?” he asked, looking just as shaken as Elliot felt.

“Olivia said it in her sleep while I was sitting with her at the hospital. She said ‘thanks, Jenny. I’ll remember.’”

Giles closed his eyes, took off his glasses, and pressed his fingertips to the inside corners of his eyes. When he had gotten control of himself, he cleared his throat.

“Jenny Calendar was a woman that I loved very much, the first two years I was Buffy’s Watcher. Jenny was killed when a vampire we had worked with – one who had a soul – lost his soul and turned rogue. He murdered Jenny to keep her from restoring his soul and, I believe, out of sheer spite towards me, Buffy, and the others.”

“You get this guy?” Elliot asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Rupert answered. “He tried to open a door into Hell, not unlike Harper, and Buffy stopped him. In doing so, she sent him to Hell.”

“Good.”

“At the time, yes,” Rupert said.

“How is it possible that Olivia knows her?”

Giles made a baffled face. “With all the magic around her in the last few days, including the protection spell, I suppose anything is possible. If she does ever remember, will you tell me?”

“Absolutely,” Elliot responded. “Look, here’s my card. I put my home address and phone on it. You need anything, Rupert, you give me a call.”

Giles took the card and tucked it into a wallet before pulling out one of his own. “The same also applies, Elliot. Anything at all.”

“Giles?” Willow asked, coming up to them. “I’m all done.”

“Miss Rosenberg,” Stabler said, looking down at her, amazed that he knew so much about her, and she knew so little of him. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She nodded, and then impulsively hugged him. A week previously, he would have been so surprised, he’d have frozen, making it awkward. Instead, he hugged her back, as he would have one of his daughters. He wondered what Maureen would think of Willow and Buffy.

“Take care,” he told her.

“You too,” she responded, pulling back a little embarrassed.

Giles put an arm around her shoulder and led her away. He looked back at Elliot for a moment and nodded at him, the acknowledgement of one warrior to another, sharing the same war, if different battlefields.


End file.
